


Here is the Blood of the Lamb

by Superkattiveh



Series: Victim of my Victory [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Missing Moments, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 67,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25822954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superkattiveh/pseuds/Superkattiveh
Summary: Two sacrificial lambs before the coming of the Messiah.Two anonymous editions, two distant districts, two voices before the revolution.Because Victors "are the very embodiment of hope where there is no hope."{Part of the Victim of my Victory series || 69th and 72nd Hunger Games || OC}
Relationships: Beetee Latier/Wiress, Original Character(s)/Original Character(s)
Series: Victim of my Victory [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1873657
Kudos: 5





	1. You shall perish of the subterranean fire

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Ecco l'Agnello di Dio](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25692925) by [Superkattiveh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superkattiveh/pseuds/Superkattiveh). 



The moment she set foot on the metal plate; the glass cylinder sealed her inside. The hum of the ventilation pipes disappeared, and everything stopped. Except for her heart. It beat rhythmically, louder and louder, so as to take on a sound of its own.

Her stylist waved at her and she surprised herself waving back, placing her palm on the glass, seeking the contact of the last person who would not represent a threat to her. But something clicked and the metal plate began to rise, pushing her towards the only possible destination. Towards her death.  
The first thing that struck her was the little light that filtered from the cylinder: as she went up everything became clearer, but less bright - no sun, no open air - and when the plate stopped she began to breathe again, even though she hadn't realized she was holding her breath. The air was thick, stale, warm.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let the Sixty-ninth Hunger Games begin!”

_ What's this? Where are we? _

In a cave - that was her first thought. No, no, too vague, too generic, too far-fetched, too many ... bridges, roads, and arches, too much care to be a simple cave. The Cornucopia was forty meters away from her, shiny and overflowing with gifts, so many that they spread almost to their feet. Obviously the most distant were the least desirable, but they were always better than nothing. She allowed herself three seconds to better examine the surroundings.

Those that seemed rudimentary bridges and roads climbed towards the surface, connecting, growing, climbing like snakes inside a pit. And there were ditches at will: the roads - beaten and barely smooth paths - were totally free of railings or parapets. All you had to do was hurt your foot, slip, or be pushed, and you would have fallen hundreds of meters. Hundreds. She could not catch anything else, although one thing was certain: they were buried deep in the rock, down in the depths of the ground.

A scream, very sharp and terrified, confirmed that she was not the only one to come that conclusion.  
Melania Phinehallows, District 2, had her eyes popping out of her head and was screaming without stopping, hands on her ears, as if she didn't want to hear her chilling screams. She turned on herself, looking for an escape route - but there was no escape route - and perhaps to look for one she put her foot in the wrong spot, and fell.

Her screams were covered by the terrible roar of landmines. The power was such that Felix found herself without realizing it in a fetal position, shivering, her head protected by her arms and her knees tight against her chest. She turned to Melania's metal circle, a little further on: nothing was left of her except colored confetti - her clothes - and shreds of meat scattered here and there.

_ Forty. _

Melania was not her biggest problem, quite the contrary. One less tribute. More screams, from a tribute she could not identify. She sincerely hoped that they would not decide to blow up too, because she wasn't sure she could resist an impact of that power once again.

_ Thirty-five. _   
  
The plain in which they were located, completely in dark stone, was dotted with backpacks of every color, from the darkest black to the brightest pink, and she would have bet her head that they were the ones who had the best stocks.

_ Thirty. _

That year the tributes were arranged in a semicircle around the Cornucopia. The smoke caused by Melania had not thinned out, making her job even more difficult.

_ Twenty. _

Felix was sweating not because of the heat but frustration. What to do? Running towards the Cornucopia towards certain death was excluded. But risk taking that blue backpack that tempted her so much?

_ Fifteen. _

She wasn't very fast, but Jack was. He could’ve grabbed something. But how to warn him? What if he killed her? What if he changed his mind? After all, he was a head taller than she was, and in the Games, friendship is only a hindrance. He could very well do it.

_ Ten. _

She could not call him, but she could look for him. _Where are you?_ Where is he? If she hadn't found him ... He would probably have died, and of a painful death. Killed before her eyes. Unacceptable.

_ Eight. _

She would have run towards him, called him, they would have fled over the plain, in one of the tunnels, they would have taken the backpack and wouldn’t have looked back. They could even hope to scrape together an axe and some knives. They’d discovered they had quick reflexes, and a certain precision that could be refined.

_ Six. _

Jack had adapted with swords and spears, but those would have been the first targets of the Careers, so they had to be ruled out, while they could deprive those from 7 of the axes, but only if they ran very fast. Nobody, unarmed, would have dared to look for them.

_ Four. _

The risk was not minimal at all, but neither was it too high. They would not have launched themselves towards the Cornucopia, they would have avoided any type of contact with anyone.  
It could’ve worked ... If only she had found Jack! She saw the sixteen-year-old from 11, the twelve-year-old from 12, the eighteen-year-old from 7 ... But Jack seemed gone. Why wasn't he there?

_ Two. _

_ Where… _

_ One. _

There he was! At the extreme right of the semi-circumference of the platforms.

The Gong rang.

Felix threw herself headlong into the fray. Screams and curses flew as her adrenaline drove her to run as she had never run in her life, to run as if her life and that of the boy who was her best friend were at stake, to run as if the whole universe depended on it. She did not notice the imposing shadow approaching until she felt its breath on her neck, too late for her to prevent it from hurling her to the ground.

“Let me go! Let me go” she struggled trying to get them off her, but they were too heavy, too strong.

They would’ve never let her go. It was the Hunger Games, and pity was not allowed. Despite this, Felix refused to give up. It was not even a conscious choice, it was a force that came from within and prevented her from giving up, leaving out any rational thought or emotion: there was only her and her attacker, whom she managed to hit. He - it could only be a him: hands too calloused, gasps too low, excessive weight - groaned with pain and surprise and for a moment he let go. Then he smashed her nose – she felt the crack right in the brain - and clenched his hands on her throat.

Everything disappeared: the pain, the noise, the screams of the Tributes. Only the terror and the awareness of being left to die remained. Her scratches, her silly attempts to loosen the grip that blocked her airways - useless. She discovered herself to lose her grip on reality. The outlines became more blurred and the sounds more muffled, as if a glass had fallen between her and the rest of reality. She almost felt no pain. Thoughts were increasingly difficult to formulate and became more incoherent. _Maybe… I’ll see my mom again…_

Then the boy's hands snapped open. Air flowed back into her lungs, as did the incredible pain in the nose. She vaguely recognized the features of her almost killer, his square jaw, his black eyes, his long hair, and identified him as the boy from District 6. She didn’t remember his name, but she didn't care. She couldn't keep her eyes open or get up.

“Come on, Felix, we have to go!”

Someone called her, moved the boy's body from hers, shook her, even slapped her. She discovered herself to passively fight that attack - she wanted to go home - but the voice became more and more familiar, and it was a voice to which she could’ve denied nothing.  
“Jack ...”  
“Yes, it's me, let's go!” He yanked her away, but she didn't move. “Felix, we have to go ...”  
“My glasses!” She hissed, seeing nothing due to the tears, the blood and her already weak sight. “I lost them ...”  
“Here they are!” Jack shoved them through and dragged her away from the crowd. Felix leaned herself totally on him; she bent down to retrieve a backpack at random and prayed that the boy would do the same; then they ran without looking back.

The bloodbath was not finished, they could hear the screams behind them, always, constantly, as if they were chasing them: the echo was powerful, and you had to pay attention to it.  
She had no idea how long they had run, nor the distance they had put between the careers and them she could not run more than that. She fell on the ground, coughing. She felt the clotted blood on her lips and the iron taste in her throat. A part of her was ashamed of that admission of weakness, in front of Jack and in front of the whole Panem. She hoped there were far more exhilarating things than a weak - and stupid - little girl to broadcast. Like her almost death, or all those that were taking place in the Cornucopia plain.

“We can't stay too long, Felix, we're too close.”  
“I know” she said angrily. If Jack was beginning to say reasonable things, the situation was serious. “I just need five minutes to recover.”  
Jack dropped to his knees and patted her hollow cheek. “Just hurry, Facilis. I didn't kill a Tribute for nothing.”

This affirmation seemed to sadden him: his lips bowed, as did his shoulders, and his eyes looked down to avoid her gaze. He was ashamed. Felix wanted to tell him that he should’ve not be ashamed, that he had indeed saved her, that she owed him, that she was grateful, that she wanted to touch him, comfort him, that she did not want to win, but she did not. She remained silent and simply nodded, avoiding his gaze.

She was ashamed to have thought, even if only for a moment, that he might have turned against her. They had been friends since childhood, and she understood the second she heard his name at the Reaping, called immediately after hers, that she had no choice. The moment she heard the District 3 male tribute is Jack Finnigan her heart fell into a deep hole. It wanted to be seen, heard, taken into consideration. But she could not allow it. The close encounter with death she had had a few minutes earlier had made her heart dangerously return to the surface, but she couldn’t afford it.  
She had to suffocate her humanity, her emotionality and her feelings to achieve her goal. After all, the Games worked exactly like chess, and she was a master at chess, the best in her District, she knew the basic rule perfectly: the Queen can move anywhere, kill anyone, massacre and become the most lethal piece on the board, but if the King dies, the game is lost. As a result, even the Queen is an expendable pawn. Felix turned to her King, who was still staring at the floor, contrite. She took a second to allow her feelings for him to warm her heart and fill it with sadness; to consider him a companion, a friend, something more, that he could never be. Then she put on her glasses, got up and gagged her heart and her pain, relegating them to a dark and inaccessible room. She could see goal straight ahead: it was enough to prevent others from doing checkmate.  
  
Then, the only obstacle would have been herself.

“We'd better see what's in the backpacks” she said in a practical and monotonous tone that characterized her interview. She was usually a little looser than that, but she had agreed with Beetee that emphasizing this characteristic would benefit her character and her cause. Obviously Beetee was not aware of her true cause, but it was still useful to have his support and point of view. She felt a pang at the thought of his mentor and shook her head, imposing silence.

_ That’s enough. _

She examined the contents of her backpack and listed them to Jack. “Matches, a sleeping bag, four sticks of ... chocolate?” she blinked, confused. She had no memory of chocolate in the Hunger Games, but she preferred to postpone the examination for later. “About two liters of water. You?”

“My water bottle is smaller than yours” said Jack, pulling his out. “On the other hand, I have a lot more food than you do: a box of beans, two of meat, two of fish, lots of nuts and some bread!” Felix felt the enthusiasm in his companion's voice, but she saw the reason that justified such abundance: there was no food in the Arena. And the water was very little too, it had to be rationed. “Even so, it will barely last for two days. If we're really careful.”  
“We only have salty food, indeed.” Jack said, putting everything back in its place. “We will be very thirsty.”  
“So, we will have to go back to the Cornucopia to get us killed!” Felix tried to stifle her anger. Damn Gamemakers, damn them all. They had thought of going as far as possible from the Cornucopia without looking back, but it was obvious that it was no longer an option. “We can't go far. Staying here is suicide. “  
“There could be food ahead” Jack said. “A water source ... Anyway we’d move away from the Careers.”  
“You're right” Felix replied. “But it’s better the devil you know than the devil you don't know. They could’ve hidden everything in those caves. I don't want to meet mutts.”  
Jack laughed and the girl looked at him confused. “Did I say something funny?”  
“Well, it's strange to hear you talk like that, like my grandmother. I've always seen you roll your eyes every time you heard a popular saying.”  
“In this case the saying is right.”  
“Whatever. I don't want to stay here, and you don't want to go away, but we certainly can't get stuck. What do you say?”

Felix closed her eyes. Jack was right. And she was not wrong. What to do? She observed the landscape that surrounded them. Dark stone clambered in every direction, the brightest colored minerals that poked like fangs from the rock. The light came from there, because there was not even a single ray of sunshine.

“I think we're in a kind of mountain. An underground city. Do you see the stairs?” she pointed at them with her finger “And the bridges? They're made to connect the passages.”  
Jack nodded, but also added that it seemed obvious to him. How else could they have explored the Arena without the help of those stairs and bridges?  
“You don’t get what I mean” Felix answered patiently. “I say we climb vertically. We stop right here and go to different levels. Many. The careers will go up at a certain point, it is logical, but I think they will tend to explore, to expand…somehow. Get it?”  
“Yes, it makes sense” the boy replied. A smile lit up his eyes, bright as sapphires. “Let's go straight, and when we need more, we go down to the Cornucopia. We just have to be careful that there are no Careers.”  
“I think it can work, at least for a while.”  
Jack stroked her cheek and nodded, beginning to arrange the supplies inside the backpack. Felix put her hand where Jack's had touched her. She was not fully satisfied with her plan, but it seemed the best she could come up with, with the information she possessed.  
The nose pain still wasn't going away.  
Ten cannon shots rang out in the Arena, a sign that the bloodbath was officially over. Ten lives swept away. Thirteen to go, Felix thought. One of them would have been hers.  
Jack called her from her thoughts by pointing to her nose, still bleeding. “Does it still hurt?”  
“Less than before” Felix ran her sleeve under her nostril to clean herself, but she sensed the layer of dried blood on her skin. The blood showed no sign of stopping, although the flow had significantly reduced compared to before. The only solution was to dab and wait. Neither she nor Jack were able to fix a deviated nasal septum, although they had attended a first aid course during training, but she did not feel like trying. She had no breathing problems, so it wasn't that bad. They began the climb keeping well away from the edges, without parapets.

“Here, take it.” Jack held out a blue handkerchief and pointed to her nose. “Use it to dab your nose until you stop bleeding.”

“Thanks” Felix nodded and walked upward with him, eager to put as much distance as possible between them and the Careers, who had certainly set off in search of all the other tributes. They didn't talk: climbing hundreds of stairs was exhausting, especially knowing that they didn't have a specific destination in mind. Felix counted the steps in her mind, to give herself something to think about that wasn't the handkerchief that Jack had given her, which had his scent. It had to be his token from home. Even the girl had one. In the inside pocket of her jacket, perfectly safe, laid a very old pocket watch that her father had given her, one of the many objects that populated the Watchmaker's shop, one of the District 3 handymen.

Every day after school, Felix went to her father's shop and helped him with errands: defective televisions, damaged music chips, old objects that no one could bring to life. No-one... but Felix. And she always did. She loved being there, away from the sight of others, placing old wreckage next to her father. Obviously, everyone in the district was able to do it, but the factory hours were long, tiring, for this reason they all turned to him, who repaired everything at affordable prices. So affordable that was not enough to live well. That’s why Felix had to take tesserae. There were twelve tickets bearing the words Felix Facilis in the girl’s bowl, that year. They weren't many, but apparently, they were enough.  
Jack didn't need tesserae. Both his parents worked in the factory and his brother, who had survived his last reaping that year, worked in the houses of those with special needs: blind and deaf children, that at school, Felix knew, did not receive the right attention. The income in the Finnigan house was sufficient to reduce the risk of their children to a minimum, yet it was not enough.  
Jack, however, was not the type to lose heart, and neither was Felix. Luckily for both of them, she was not a fool. Not that the boy was, just that he was much more prone to emotion than needed. He did not think before acting, and this was a problem. And he was distracted. At the moment he was surely focused on putting one foot forward on the other and distancing the Careers - and this was good - but he was not paying attention to the surrounding area, perhaps because it was too monotonous to attract his attention. Precisely that monotony was the fundamental characteristic that would have been a problem for the other tributes.

There was no way to find your way in that infinite city. The stairs were all the same, they led to the same squares that intersected in all the same bridges and roads. Only after three hours of painful ascent - Felix checked her watch - she noticed a very slight change in the color of the stone, more greenish than the blue of the floors below. However, she could not explain this phenomenon. “It is a good thing that we decided to move vertically” she commented during a pause from climbing.  
“It doesn't seem to me” Jack replied sarcastically. “I'm dying.”  
He actually had a bad color and was covered in sweat. She thought she had the same miserable appearance and decided that they could take a sip of water. She handed the bottle to Jack and explained the reason for her statement. “It's all the same, identical. There is no way to find your way. There is no lighthouse, no towers ... nothing at all. Just these damned minerals and the three thousand and fifty-seven steps we've done.”  
Jack frowned “I lost count.”  
Don't worry, Felix wanted to tell him, but the words died in her throat. “We know that if we want to go down to the Cornucopia it takes about three and a half hours to walk down these stairs, and then we have to go left for about twenty minutes.” All those approximations annoyed her, but for the first leg of the trip she had followed Jack too in pain to evaluate precisely.  
“What if we stop here?” Jack suggested.  
Felix did not want to stop so little from the start of the games, but her legs were shaking from the effort, not to mention her thirst. “Okay, then we'll decide the turns.”  
Instantly both she and Jack collapsed. This made him laugh and his laughter had the power to infect her too, who smiled for a brief moment. Jack's mind was probably relaxing at the moment, while Felix's was driving non-stop, already projected into the future. What pitfalls was the Arena hiding? What had the Gamemakers created for the fun of the Capitol? It annoyed her that she had not been able to identify a pattern in the surrounding environment: even the minerals that protruded from the rock were like fragments of glass thrown on the floor, too random to find any logic. They would’ve kept away from it anyway.

“There’s blood everywhere” the boy said.  
Felix looked down at the handkerchief he had given her. It was true. It was drenched in blood and the blue of the fabric was almost no longer visible: it was probably ruined beyond any possibility of recovery. “I'm sorry” she held out to him, intending to return it, but Jack shook his head vehemently. “Don't worry, keep it. In case you started bleeding again.”

Highly unlikely, but Felix did as she was told and placed the square of fabric inside the jacket in her free pocket. There was no way to understand what time it was based on natural light - obviously, given its absence - for this reason the watch she had brought would prove to be fundamental. What was to be a simple home token had become the only object that would have prevented their slow sliding into madness. At least, in an open-air Arena, in moments of quiet like that they would have had something to dwell on: the sky, the landscape, any animals ... Instead they were trapped in an endless maze. She almost felt sick of looking at that maze of stairs and bridges.

Jack wasn't a big talker either, but he certainly spoke more than she did, and his silence worried her. He was sitting with his back resting on the rock, his gaze blank and fixed in an indefinite point in front of him. It took her a couple of seconds to figure out why, then it occurred to her that not less than three hours earlier he had killed a person to save her life. Killing changes you, I guess. Something inside her moved, a part very close to the “mother area”. She realized that at that moment she and Jack were on two opposite sides of the same river.  
She was on the side of someone who had lost someone dear, killed by the neglect of the Capitol, someone who had been torn from her, while Jack was on the side of who was responsible for that loss. He was on the Capitol side.

Yet, how different their roles and reasons were. Jack had done it to save her, while the Capitol had acted carelessly. That was the worst thing: Jack had been forced and now there he was thinking about that action, gnawed by remorse, while in the Capitol no one worried about the factories that fell apart and the workers who died. Maybe they didn't even know and that was the worst.  
“Jack?”  
He shook his head, came to himself and met her gaze. “Yes?”  
Felix wanted to tell him that he wasn't a killer for what he had done. She wanted to tell him that it was the only option he had and that it would’ve happened anyway sooner or later. That everyone in there should have killed at least one if they wanted to win. It was inevitable. But as he had been unable to console her for the loss of her mother, she could not comfort him for stealing the life of a son. So, she pushed those thoughts away and simply said that she would take the first turn later. “We do four-hour shifts. If nobody bothers us, we could even sleep a little more.”

Obviously, something bothered them.  
She woke up suddenly with Jack's hand pressed to her mouth. Still in panic, she caught his index finger pressed against his lips: Quiet. With his eyes he pointed to the stairs behind her and Felix calmed down, straining her ear. Steps.  
Quickly and silently they took their backpacks and vanished up the stairs. Her watch confirmed that it was early morning, seven twenty-two, and that they had survived the Games for about eighteen hours. She considered it wise to keep the observation to herself. Suddenly they heard the cannon, followed shortly afterwards by a second shot.  
“And that's twelve” Jack said pale.  
“Shh” Felix replied, climbing yet another flight of stairs.

...

Nothing has happened for two days, Felix thought taking two sips of water, we must expect some twists.  
“Felix, look here!”  
Jack was pointing to a corridor to their left: a slight glow illuminated the stone arches, a very clear lilac. “Good, let's go in the opposite direction.”  
The only answer was silence and then the soft sound of footsteps going away from her. “Is it possible to be so stupid ... Jack!”  
The boy walked towards the light regardless of her. Felix tugged on his hand to bring him back to reality, telling him that it was a trick of the Gamemakers and that they should not trust it, but he simply went on, without even giving her a glance. The worry that grew in her halted her run when her frantic eyes rested on the light several meters down. Oh - all thoughts went to zero - how beautiful!  
It was not a bad idea to follow the glow: it shone like a star in the darkness of the Arena.

Star… little star ...

Whatever was in her hand fell, and she too walked towards that light that seemed to come from the minerals themselves growing on the green walls of the rock. They lit up, went out, reappeared a little further down and started again. All this for an endless period of time, Felix would not have been able to quantify it, but she didn't care: she just had to follow the light, the slight white, lilac, pink, pure glow that illuminated the way like a star in the night. But the night was ending - how could she have thought that there was no alternation between dark and light in that Arena?

Their feet went down innumerable stairs, crossed bridges, walked through halls and streets without realizing the great changes that modified what they had considered an unchangeable Arena. Now that they followed it, they understood that light meant passing of time, salvation - everything. It was no longer a light that lit up in a small mineral clinging to the wall: the wall itself was the mineral. That was the reason why the light was so intense at that moment, so clear and vivid and bright.  
For this reason, when they saw the snake, they did not panic.

Yet it was great. Immense, of a ghostly white. Wrapped on itself in countless volutes, its head resting on the huge body, its eyes closed. It could have been dead, had it not been for the rhythmic contraction of the coils. Was it inside a glass - glass room? Since when was there glass in the Arena? - surmounted by a dome of the same color as the light. Everything was illuminated by that lilac glow that seemed to radiate from the walls. As Felix’ thoughts became more coherent the light became dimmer. She caught an excited noise of footsteps and then five people entered the room: the Careers. They had the same rapt expression on their face that she and Jack were just now losing. Even a boy came there completely at the mercy of light, the tribute of District Eight. The three groups had arrived through three different entrances and all were recovering some sense. In the dome it was like witnessing a strange pink sunset. Frost at nightfall.

Felix's breath condensed into clouds.  
“It's cold” ...Jack murmured, clutching his arms. His eyes caught the Careers' figures at the other end of the room, and he cursed. By now they had spotted them and aimed them with swords and spears and their voices, too loud. “They'll wake him up, Jack, we have to leave!”  
But in that moment of the rocks began to fall from the highest floors of the mountain, closing the exits with a noise similar to the rumble of thunder. Felix and Jack watched helplessly the cascade of stones and shivered at the din caused. Only one exit had remained clear.  
How nice, these Gamemakers!  
Then, in the stunned silence that followed, there was only one sound: the hiss of a snake awakened from its lethargy.

“Let's run! Jack, run!”  
They were trapped in that beautiful dome. Between them and the exit came a mutt eager to taste their meat and tributes trained for life to kill.  
The mutt shone with a pale whitish glow; his eyes shone like emeralds set in white gold. It was beautiful and terrible at the same time and Felix had never experienced such fear in her entire life. It was like being in the bloodbath again. The screams were the same. But the snake's hisses, the noise of its fangs that were drawn ...

_ Run run run run... _

But she could not escape from there: a Career appeared suddenly, the boy from 1 - she perfectly remembered his name, Lapis - with his spear in his hand and a scornful smile on his face. “Here you are!”

Felix stopped, panting. Jack was beside her, sweaty, but on his face there was neither the fear nor the tiredness that surely she had written on her face: anger altered the boy's beautiful features, blue eyes electrocuted the enemy with a fury that she had never seen on his face. Felix could hear nothing but the beating of her heart. She glanced quickly behind them: the remaining Careers were fighting with the snake while the boy from the 8 fled to the exit, blocked by Lapis. He would have overwhelmed them even if they joined forces. The adrenaline made her see everything in slow motion: the boy from 8 who ran, the saliva that slipped from the snake's fangs, his immense coils that moved frantically ...  
Lapis laughed and pulled the spear towards them, Felix braced herself for the impact and heard Jack scream in terror, then the slimy sound of ripped flesh and the cannon. She turned, petrified.  
The boy from District 8 lay impaled on the ground, eyes and mouth wide open. A trickle of blood slid down his lips. The spear was embedded in the exact half of the chest, right where the heart had beaten in anguish up to an instant before. The surgical precision with which Lapis killed him made her spit a frightened groan.

Her eyes met those of the snake. Its nostrils expanded - snakes don't breathe through the nose, they smell scents with their mouths - and its jaws popped, ready to bite anyone who was in their way.  
It was a few dozen meters away, but Felix immediately sensed what had attracted him. The blood. A boy stood between the snake and its prey and the only thing Felix perceived was the sound of his bones breaking. She did not see anything because she slung over the boy's body, put a foot on his chest, grabbed the spear and started pulling with all the strength she had in her body. Another cannon shot. She trembled. She heard the snake approaching, the boys fighting and the girls screaming and that damned spear that didn't decide to come away…  
With a final effort and a terrible slimy sound the spear came out of the boy's chest, but this catapulted Felix to the ground, who crawled and crawled and struggled to get back on her feet as she moved away from the corpse that was being torn to pieces by the predator.  
She knew she had a few seconds before the remaining Tributes poured over them and perhaps even less before the mutt got tired of the body of the boy from Eight and the anxiety almost made her drop her spear while she ran towards Jack, who was fighting Lapis.

Or rather, Lapis was destroying Jack.

He was sitting on his chest, his fierce expression, his hands clasped on Jack's neck. One hand of the boy lay inert on the ground, pierced by a ruthless knife and the other tried in vain to push him away, but Felix knew what he was going through and he knew that life was abandoning him, that his thoughts were becoming more sparse and vacuous, that in a matter of seconds he would have stopped fighting and Lapis would have had an easy victory…  
Felix prepared herself with all the strength she was capable of – quiet he mustn't hear you - and hit Lapis on the side, making him hiss in pain. It was not a fatal wound, not even now that she pushed the spear deeper into his body and moved him away from Jack, who coughed and almost vomited on the floor. Lapis grunted in pain and looked at her with hatred, yet he managed to spit all his contempt in her face: “You ... can't ... even kill me.”

At that moment Felix also felt a discharge of hate burning her veins. Another cannon rang out in the air - who else is there, what happened - and rationality took over the situation. “I don't want to kill you.”  
She looked down at the boy's side: on the white fabric of his shirt, a stain of blood opened like a flower on the snow. By now the damage was done. She drew the spear and skewered it again, this time moving the blade to open the wound as much as possible and felt something slimy touch her skin, but she didn't care: she jumped up and ran away, ignoring the moans, the grunts and the laments of Lapis, who writhed on the ground trying to keep his intestines inside. But it was too late now.  
She did not need to turn around to see the snake pounce on the boy, she only hoped that the bleeding she had caused was enough to keep the snake busy and that the snake itself had caused too much damage for the remaining Careers to follow them.

Terrible screams echoed across the mountain. Screams of a person tormented by pain, fierce hisses and other sounds that Felix could not and did not want to identify.  
Jack was just beyond the exit, slumped on the stone. Now, the Arena looked just like it used to: bridges and stairs and roads all the same, minerals on the walls that were now of a deep blue, a sign that they had descended to many levels and no longer knew how to return to the starting point. Third day in the Arena and there were nine of them left and they had completely lost their sense of direction and all their belongings. There was nothing left to do but search for the Cornucopia and refuel. In return, they had earned a knife. The one still stuck in Jack's hand.  
“Jack, get up. We have to go. We have to escape.”  
¬”No, I can't do it, I can't do it ...” the boy sobbed, his eyes out of his orbit, frightened, lost. He trembled. “I want to go home, I want to go home ...”  
“Jack, listen to me ... Listen to me!” The boy flinched at hearing her speak in such a harsh tone. “You will go back home into a wooden coffin if we don't move. The snake is attracted to blood. That's why I stabbed Lapis, but you're bleeding, and I have blood on my hands. The Careers could come out at any time. We have to go away. Now.”

Jack nodded, unconvinced, but got up. He swayed. Felix took his arm and passed it around her neck. Since she was much shorter than him, it was a particularly uncomfortable maneuver, but she dragged him further and further away from the dome, the Careers and the mutt. She was careful not to touch Jack's hand, but every now and then she couldn’t help it and the boy's hissing pain became more and more desperate and Felix did not know what to do but shushing him and keep going - ahead- although she had no idea what, or where, “ahead” was.  
The cannon shot, almost certainly decreeing the end of Lapis. Felix could no longer carry Jack and he did not seem to be able to continue, therefore they had to stop. They had gone up by only one level, they hoped it was enough.

“Leave me here ...” Jack murmured in desperation. “Leave me here and save yourself. You should leave me. “

Felix shook his head. “You need a bandage. We cannot remove the knife without a bandage, otherwise you will have a bleed.”

“I'll die anyway.” Jack closed his eyes and tears streaked his dirty cheeks. “Maybe I deserve to die ... I wanted to kill him ... I wanted him to die. I'm not that different from him. “  
“Don't say nonsense.” Felix looked around and saw no one.  
She was about to do something she wasn't sure of at all. “I have to leave you for a while. I'm going to find… “ even what she was about to say seemed stupid to her. What did she want to look for in that immensity of nothing? “I'm going to look for bandages for your hand.”  
“Go” Jack murmured without looking at her. “I too would abandon myself if I were in your shoes.”  
“I'm not abandoning you.” Felix's hands clenched into fists. There was not even a part of her that wished to leave him alone, not even the smallest, although she knew, without any shame, that if there had been someone else in place of Jack, anyone else, she would have not hesitated to tear his knife out of hand - literally - to leave him there to die. But Jack wasn't anyone else, and she really needed to find bandages and possibly supplies for the two of them. “There is only one chance I will not return, and that chance is unacceptable. Do you understand? Unacceptable.”  
Jack looked like a frightened child as he nodded.  
“Wait. I will come back.”

She could not get anything else out of her mouth - neither a hello, nor a smile, nothing at all - so she walked quickly into the unknown, although every single cell in her body screamed at her not to. The problem, however, was far more serious than the self-preservation instinct doing its job. There were nine of them left. The next fallen would send journalists to the families the tributes left in the game. District 3 was currently the only one that boasted both tributes still alive. Decades had passed since the last time it had been. At that point, the alliance between the Careers would have dissolved, if not already, and it was only a matter of letting them kill each other and at best giving the coup de grace to someone ensure that, mathematically, it would have been District 3 to win. For the now the odds were in their favor.

As the good Queen she was, she was moving horizontally, vertically and diagonally on the chessboard for all the boxes she wanted to do her job: protect the King, injured, in body and spirit, temporarily out of the enemy's reach but always on the point of being in checkmate.  
They should have killed at least one more. They were perfectly capable of that. But killing a person isn't exactly like eating a piece, and Felix realized this by looking at her own hands. To say they were soaked with blood would have been an understatement. She watched them and suddenly felt the spear in her fingers again, Lapis’ blood gushing from the wound, his eyes that, for a moment, had softened into a surprised expression that had eliminated all traces of arrogance from his face. It had only lasted a moment, but Felix noticed it. Unfortunately for her, nothing ever escaped her. It had not escaped her that from Career, for a moment, Lapis became a boy, his saliva and his blood spit on her own cheeks, she hadn’t miss that slimy sensation that she felt while opening his wound, his entrails flaking on her hands.

_ Pieces don't bleed. _

She was stuck in the corridor and stared at her hands without being able to go on. No matter how many pieces she ate, her hands were unbroken, and playing brought her joy, not regret.  
But when she played, she didn't make human baits for bloodthirsty mutts.  
She shivered.

She could, she had to kill another one at the very least. She had foreseen this. Had everything gone as she wished, she and her childhood best friend would remain. Only one winner, the echo of the film that they transmitted at each Reaping rang in her head, words she knew by heart but had not fully understood until now.

She could kill seven more people, she could kill twenty-three, a hundred, a thousand, all those needed to save him. She could kill but she could not die for him.  
_What do I do then?_  
One more thing had not escaped her, the most painful: Lapis' eyes. Those eyes that she had watched as she gutted him to draw the mutt on him. Blue eyes and very clear, almost gray. The same eyes as Jack.

The instinct for self-preservation was her real enemy now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (English is not our first language so please forgive any mistake)  
> You can find us on Tumblr @superkattivehblr


	2. And it will be turned into blood

The clock read eleven

In the evening, it had to be. Not long ago, perhaps a couple of hours, they had projected the anthem and the faces of the fallen. Lapis was dead, just as she had imagined. The boy from District 4 and the boy from District 8 had followed him. She hated to remember their names: Reed and Cinder ... or Caedar? She couldn’t grasp it, but she would have preferred not to know anything at all. As with Melania, who had died first, she had observed them enough to remember them. Now that she thought about it, she could list all the names of the tributes. If not with absolute precision, at least close. _Sometimes I just wish I wasn't this good_.

The total deaths were three that day, but they had been more than exciting, so she had reason to believe that for once they would have had some breathing space, at least all night. What did it matter? Her research was proving to be exactly what she predicted: dramatically unsuccessful. The Arena was always identical to itself - scattered and bright blue stone and minerals - and this homogeneity was beginning to harass her more than she wished to admit. Exhausted, she let herself slide on a wall.

She was conscious of giving off a vaguely pungent smell. Not strong enough to be unpleasant, not yet, but it wouldn't have taken long. She had never been so dirty in her life. She felt Lapis' dried blood on her hands, now a color closer to brown than red; her sweaty shirt attached to her skin; her pants cut off on the knee, though she had no idea how it happened. She wanted to go home.

She wanted to have her wrench in her hand and a broken toy to readjust, she wanted a chessboard in front of her and a worthy opponent to challenge, she wanted the gas stove and her father who laid the table while she prepared dinner at the best of her ability , with the poor food they had. How deeply she missed her father!

It was no mystery why they called him the Watchmaker - not _a_ watchmaker, but _the_ Watchmaker - because although he fixed everything and his shop was full of objects of all kinds, the watches were the masters. Time was rhythmically marked by countless hands with painstaking precision, accompanied by the persistent ticking of the tireless pendulums. Tic toc, every moment of the day. Tic toc, that sound was home. Tic toc, she always knew what to do.

The Watchmaker was a good man, and Felix loved him with all of herself. She loved him so much that thinking about him hurt her, because not only would he find himself a widower, but also ... an orphan? No, not an orphan. _There is no word that describes a father without a child_ , and this destabilized her to the point that she felt the need to close her eyes to keep the whole world away from her. Her father's arms were the only ones from which she had never felt the need to escape, so she had lingered there for the whole hour allowed by the Capital to say goodbye to loved ones, on the day of the Reaping. “I know you love him, he is your best friend, but please, Felix, come home.”

She would have come back, one way or the other. In any case, she was a murderer. Would her father still love her? She could have endured the hatred and contempt of everyone, but not the Watchmaker, Ned Facilis. Not her father. She tightened even more on the pocket watch he had given her and took a deep breath. In that moment, the cannon thundered.

_Sixteen down_ , Felix opened her eyes. _Eight to go._

Now the going got tough.

She heard the metallic noise of the hovercraft and sprang to her feet. If she could hear it, it meant she was close. She had no idea how a hovercraft managed to sneak into that underground maze, she imagined that the spaces after all were large enough to allow a small vehicle to wander around without arousing suspicion. But if she was close enough to hear it, it meant that a tribute had died not far from there. A tribute that potentially had supplies and a backpack next to them. That perhaps the hovercraft had not taken or that had slipped from the metal claw that recovered the corpse. It was a remote possibility but going back without trying everything was unacceptable. She ran.

When she arrived, she found only a blood stain and an apparently empty bag on the floor. As she checked the bag Felix wondered who and how they died. A liquid sound ignited hope in her, hope that was not broken: there was a water bottle in there! Evidently the bag had been given for empty or the water had not been deemed important enough to be taken, and the only ones to have an attitude of such arrogance were the Careers. The only ones who didn't have to crawl to get basic necessities and who always took them for granted, even in a delicate situation like that. It worried her that they were so close, even if there had been only one. She had to get away, and quickly.

Felix could not stop herself from drinking, but she did not finish all the water. She took the bag with her and headed towards Jack with renewed determination. She hadn't found what she wanted, and hunger pangs were stinging, but at least they would have drunk that evening, and it was much better than nothing.

The two hours of straight walking that separated her from Jack passed faster than expected. Jack was right where she left him. He lay with his eyes closed with his back resting on the wall, his hand clasped under his jacket, his face bloodless. His pallor alarmed her.

A foolish part of her couldn't help but find him handsome, and incredibly similar to his brother. Under normal conditions Jack’s skin was darker than Isaac’s - as the Finnigan's elder was called - who instead had a pale complexion, of a shade practically identical to the girls. It was the first time that Felix found them similar, because even the eyes, although both blue, were of incredibly different shades. Not to mention their hair: as black as ink for Jack, as blond as wheat for Isaac. They were like chess lines, black and white. At first glance, deeply different, but a King is a King, either black or white, and Jack and Isaac were undeniably brothers - the unconsciousness of sleep exalted all the similarities that waking hid.

Felix gently shook the boy's shoulder. “Jack, I'm back.”

He made a strange grimace but opened his eyes and the shadow of a smile made his way on his lips. “I'm glad to see you.”

“Me too” Felix smiled slightly and took the bottle out of his bag. “I was unable to find bandages, but I found some water. I'll help you drink.”

She brought the bottle close to him and put his hand under his lips in case a few drops had fallen. Jack drank a lot but in small sips, then nodded. “Open my jacket.”

Felix did as he asked and objects spilled onto the boy's outstretched legs: scissors, two spool plasters, a small bottle and a tinkling box. Felix was incredulous. “Where did you get this stuff?”

“At the dome” Jack said. “It took me a long time to get back there and drag myself down here. I couldn't do better.” He hissed in pain. “You have to take the knife off me.”

“I can't believe it.” The girl felt anger build inside her. “You fool! I told you that the snake is attracted to blood and you go back to its den like that! For what then? For the remote possibility of finding something useful? You haven't even found the bandages!”

“Neither did you!” The boy replied spicy. “I had to try! I didn't know if you would ever come back or found something. I thought hey, there were a lot of tributes there in the greenhouse! Who knows if someone has lost something in a hurry? The mutt doesn't have to be there, and if it is ... well, at least you've tried!”

“That's why you have to let me do the thinking.” Felix took the bottle and the box. The bottle was filled with a red liquid - disinfectant - while the box was filled with white tablets. The previous owner had been a particularly suspicious person, as the package was overflowing with pills. But the Gamemakers would never have put something harmful inside the backpacks, otherwise what show would have been? She swallowed one without water ignoring Jack's protests. She waited a few seconds but felt no particular change and decided that whatever they were, they did no harm. “Take one. Do you need water to get it down?”

Jack made a timid protest: “But we don't know what they are.”

“They can't make us feel worse than we are now. This is chemical stuff from the Capitol, maybe it's a medicine or tablet that contains nutrients. Vitamins, carbohydrates, proteins ... I don't know.” Felix opened the bottle and held it close to the friend's lips. “But I know that if we don't eat it, we will get worse, while if we eat it we have a little chance of getting better. I am one hundred percent sure that it cannot harm us.”

“Okay.” Jack swallowed the tablet with a single sip of water. “It makes sense, but it seems a little simplistic.”

“It is the Occam principle” Felix replied. “All things being equal, the simplest option is the preferred one. It would not be a good show if we died of poisoning, especially if induced by Gamemakers. I think the most logical option is to get killed by the other Tributes.” Felix shrugged. “I would do this if I were one of them.”

“Luckily, you're not” Jack replied. He sighed and then squeezed his healthy hand over Felix's left hand. “Thank you. I am really happy that you are back.”

“I told you. I will not leave you.”

The girl sat on her knees and picked up the disinfectant. The Gamemakers must have been laughing out loud! They had no bandages and the mutt they had unleashed had produced quite a mess; the kind of turn that would have made everyone sit on the edge of the seat in excitement. Just a nice job, really. She, on the other hand, had to medicate without bandages, a wound that was perhaps better left like this. What would have cost them to put them in the backpack that Jack had stolen? There was no other solution than the one Felix was thinking about, but it filled her with anger and unease. Suddenly she remembered Beetee's dark eyes and kind words, while he told her that he believed in her and her intellect. _You are so determined. You always find a way_. She even remembered that he patted her on the cheek before the start of the Games and felt oddly heartened, more focused.

“Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“I said” Felix repeated impatiently. “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Because I say so, that's why. Just do it.”

Jack rolled his eyes, annoyed by her authoritarian tone, but for once he did as he was told. Felix turned away from him as a further precaution, lowered the zipper of her jacket and took off her shirt. She noticed how the breasts were flatter, almost deflated, and how protruding the ribs had become. Never in all life had she been so damaged. Yet she had taken a few pounds in the Capitol, hoping that it would take longer to lose them. She could not stand the sight of her body reduced in that way, so she fastened her jacket and lifted the zip in a flash, not wanting to expose herself in that way. They had already seen enough; they would not have seen her body too.

At least that was hers.

“You can open your eyes. Pass the scissors?”

Jack held them out and asked her if she was making bandages from her shirt. Felix nodded, cutting strips of fabric the length of a finger and placing them close to each other. She judged that it was better to disinfect them before removing the knife, because between the huge flow of blood that would have ensued and Jack's spasms, she would not have had time to wet them in the disinfectant. She also disinfected her hands, reviving the red that had already dried on her skin. She was almost getting used to the idea of having perpetually ruby hands.

“Okay, now we have to remove the knife.” She reached out to take Jack’s, but he didn't move his own. Intrigued, she looked up and saw that he was holding his hand tight against his chest, shaking his head frantically. “No. Please.”

Felix felt her heart crumple at the sound of his terrified voice. She tried to soften her tone and to communicate her intentions through his gaze. “I think it’s been in the hand for too long. It temporarily stopped the bleeding, but I fear an infection. There is no other way.”

“I'll die if you take that knife out!”

“You'll die if we don't take it out.” Felix shook her head and took his healthy hand in hers. “Listen to me. It will be very bad, sorry, but you will thank me, I promise you. I'll take the knife off, bandage you, and heal you.” _You will lose your hand for sure_. _But it’s better losing a hand than your life…_

The boy was breathing heavily and looking around as if seeking help. But nobody would come to help them, didn't he understand? That moment he could only count on her. She unbuckled her belt and folded it, then offered it to him. “Bite this.”

Jack took it, but still didn't put it in his mouth. “How do you ... stay so focused?”

He asked the question without malice, yet she perceived a note of accusation in his voice. As if he was blaming her or was envious of her. Felix felt cornered, because it occurred to her every time someone had tried to make her feel guilty for who she was. Focused, organized, pragmatic. Not sweet, not kind, not friendly. Felix took high marks at school, studied chemistry, physics, algebra, dreamed of becoming chief engineer in the car and electronic device factory, won the District’s chess competition every year and worked in a shop crammed with broken objects. Hardworking, therefore, yet not selfless. But she was determined, yes. Jack had never made her feel wrong and perhaps in that moment she was imagining everything, exhausted by the efforts of the Arena. Couldn’t he see that the only thing keeping him alive was her determination? Why didn't he do as she said?

“Because someone has to do it. You can’t. Not because you don’t want to - Jack had opened his mouth to protest - but you can't. You would let this infection corrode your body, you went to the snake's den in critical conditions and risked your life for nothing, you don't understand…” Felix closed her eyes, calming the anger that built up inside her. He was sick, he didn't understand. She couldn't get mad at him. It wasn't his fault she had decided to save him and not herself, it wasn't his fault that she didn't know whether or not she had the strength to kill herself to win the game. It wasn't fair to dump her frustrations on one of the few people who had never judged her.

“I'm focused because I have to.”

“Felix” Jack took her face and forced her to look at him in the eyes. Perhaps he saw in the grey eyes of the girl all the frustration, anger and the feeling of helplessness that she felt, her hollow cheeks, her face covered in blood, the little girl she was. Maybe that's why the feeling of accusation that she had felt vanished when she heard him speak in such a delicate tone. Maybe that is why she squeezed the hand that was stroking her cheek. “You can't always fix everything.”

Unthinkable. She almost laughed at him. “But I have to… And I can.”

“No, it is not true. You can't fix me, even if it's the safest thing to do. Sometimes you have to take some risks, and realize that things don't always go as planned.”

“You only say that because you're afraid of the pain.”

Jack stifled a laugh that infected even her and for a moment, a very short moment, she felt that she had gone home. Then that sensation broke and reality rushed back to them. Jack frowned and shook his head. “I certainly cannot be a fool in front of all Panem looking at me. In front of my brother!”

Isaac would never have judged him for this, they both knew it, but the good-natured rivalry between them was hard to eradicate, even down there. It was a comforting thought. Jack sighed and bit the belt. “At three.”

Felix nodded. She made him put his good hand on the ground in order to have support. “One ...” and tore the knife from the back of his hand.

Blood and screams splashed in the air. Or rather, sobs and wheezes, since the belt between the teeth was muffling most of the sounds that Jack was making. It couldn't stop the tears and spasms, though. Felix hoped with all of herself that no one had heard them, because they were both easy targets. She quickly put the knife on the ground, grabbed the bandages and started wrapping them around his hand. They were so wet and short, and Jack was trembling so much, she hurried to apply them and move on to the next, but between the blood and the disinfectant she could not understand what made the bandages so scarlet ...

The bandages ran out and were nowhere near enough. Jack cried without brakes and how to blame him? He had nothing to obfuscate his senses and had not been lucky enough to pass out from the pain. She took the band-aid patch and began to secure the bandages, wrapping them tightly, trying to stem the bleeding. Once done, Jack’s hand looked like an orange and the patch laid abandoned on the dark stone. By now the boy was sobbing without making any sounds. Felix took the bottle, made him drink, then gave him two more tablets. Perhaps he would have thought they were pain medicines and would have fallen asleep. He had no idea if it was because of that or the extreme loss of energy, but Jack fell asleep. She too slept. She tried with all her will to stay awake, to keep watch, but fatigue got the better and her eyes betrayed her, closing. She was just human, after all.

At least twenty-four hours had passed since she last checked her watch. It was three thirty. She wondered how long it had taken her to find the water bottle, come back, medicate Jack and finally fall asleep. She was hungry, but not as hungry as she should have been, considering that she hadn't been eating solid food for at least two days. Those pills really were useful. She felt oddly rested. Not like a good night's sleep at all, but she didn't feel the exhaustion and weakness she had experienced before falling into deep, dreamless sleep. Jack had his eyes closed and was breathing regularly. He was pale but had no symptoms visible to the naked eye. Felix sighed and looked up, already alert despite everything.

_Eight._

Whom were they interviewing at home on her behalf? Her father, no doubt. Maya? She realized with shame that she had not even reserved a thought to her from the moment she greeted her before taking the train, too focused on herself and Jack to think about anything else. Maybe they were right to blame her for the lack of humanity and feelings. Maybe she was truly heartless. Her father, Maya and who else? Considering that Jack was her closest friend and Isaac a pleasant company she often spent time with, no one else. Isaac was Jack's brother, and it was in that capacity that they would interview him. His mom, dad and other friends he hung out with when she wasn't with her. There was no question who was the popular one in District 3.

The problem was that the District's favorite didn't stop getting into trouble. Venturing into the dome alone while she was away, engaging in a fight with Lapis, even throwing himself into the Blood Bath at the Cornucopia ... Not that she wasn't grateful to him, she was just worried. How could she keep him alive if he himself put his life at risk with such carelessness and she was beginning to fear the future that seemed very uncertain? The possibilities were three.

One: the Careers or anyone else would have found and killed them. It could have happened in that exact moment, with Jack dozing and Felix resting on the rock wall watching the changing minerals. _Likely._

Two: for some mysterious reason, the two of them would have remained the last two standing and should have killed each other. _Highly unlikely, almost impossible. Definitely not desirable_.

Three: they had to separate. If not immediately, when there would be six. This would have eliminated any chance of remaining only the two of them. With Jack seriously injured and Felix unarmed how would they manage to defend themselves, without someone looking over their shoulder? Without the respect and trust they placed in each other?

What to do? She realized that her hands were shaking. They were running out of time. At that rate, the Games would not last long, two days at most. The choice was imminent.

“Good morning” Jack murmured. For once, Felix was not happy to hear his voice. Now he would wake up and start talking and need medication and keep her from thinking clearly. The girl had understood one thing: the choice was so difficult because she had no clear goal. She turned to her district mate. “How are you feeling?”

“Weak” he replied. “My arm hurts badly. I can't feel my hand anymore.”

_You will probably lose it_ , Felix thought. But she thought it was for the best not to say it out loud. “I'm sorry I have nothing for the pain.”

“You've done a lot already” the boy smiled sadly. “I don't think that's enough, though.” The girl didn't answer. She certainly could not blame him. She swallowed two tablets with a long sip of water, helping Jack do the same. “You were right about these pills” said the boy. “I don't feel properly satisfied, but I'm not hungry. I feel better than yesterday.”

”Indeed. I'd say we take two more, just to be sure. But not too many, I wouldn't want to develop some kind of addiction.”

“You always think about everything” Jack's tone was admiring, as was his smile. How was it possible to throw him mercilessly into an Arena? She just couldn't understand such bad luck. She thanked him but avoided looking at him. They were not at a fork; they were at a cruel crossroads and they could not hesitate for long. The path they had walked together until then had stopped. “I disinfected the knife. It is very sharp, be careful.”

“Sure” he sat up and Felix noted with pleasure that, aside from his pallor, he seemed to be doing well. She hoped it wasn't the improvement before the relapse. But in that case, what could she have done?

Jack, for his part, avoided looking at her. He was playing with pebbles with the good hand and was thinking about what he had to say. In the end, he convinced himself to speak. “I've been thinking a lot too, Felix. We need to talk.”

Like any person who hears those words, Felix felt her blood freeze in her veins. “Tell me.”

“We are only eight. I don't want the two of us to be the last.”

She felt something inside her writhing like a caged animal, but it was something so remote and indefinable and small that she perceived it as alien to herself. All she felt was black and cold and emotionless.

“... And I think we should separate because ... because ....” Jack shook his head. They both knew why.

“All right.”

Jack's eyes widened. He did not expect such a swift response. He didn't expect Felix to let him go so quickly.

She started sharing what little they had. “The scissors and the spool patch remain. Keep them. The disinfectant is finished” Then their eyes fell on the knife they had collected. He looked at her questioningly: who would she give it to?

Felix thought about it for a moment and then handed it to him: “You need it more than I do in your conditions.”

Jack took it, but it was evident that he would not have been able to put it anywhere without the help of Felix, who slipped it between his trousers and his belt, making sure that it did not fall. Then Jack started talking, probably to tell her everything they would never have time to tell. Felix did not understand a word of what he said: she saw the boy's lips moving and felt his hand touching hers, but apart from that, nothing.

As in a dream, he sensed the boy's arm around her shoulders and let herself be tightened in their last embrace, her head against his chest and her stiff hands at her sides. She held her breath all the time, even when he kissed her cheek and said goodbye with shining eyes.

“Goodbye” Felix murmured, as she saw him turn his back on her and walk, a little uncertain, towards the dome, the only point of reference in that stone labyrinth. For the first time since the Games had started, Felix felt an incredible feeling of claustrophobia and felt a pity for Melania, the first of them who had died. She watched Jack become a smaller dot and disappear in those arches and cyclopean bridges, and then disappear. Only an hour had passed since she woke up and the choice had been made. So efficient.

Although every part of her wanted to curl up in a fetal position and lie there until the end – of her, of the Games, what did it matter? – she found it impossible to lie down and abandon herself to one's destiny. She didn't know what she wanted, but she knew what she should have done: follow Jack's direction, get closer to the only reference point she had and hide there. Since it was the only logical option, she decided to put it into practice. Not that she had anything else to do. She no longer had a backpack to put on her shoulder: she took the tablets in one hand and the bottle of water in the other and followed Jack's steps. She went up several floors, not as many as the first time, but a good number, until she felt the aching legs. The naked and sweaty skin of the torso was in contact with the rough fabric of the jacket, for this reason she could not avoid scratching. The solution would have been simple: unbutton. But she would never have exposed herself like that. Rather, she would have preferred to see entire flaps of skin falling apart. She always went straight, sure of her way until, an hour later, she glimpsed the pink glow of the dome.

Someone shouted.

For a very long moment, the boy screamed at the top of his lungs, the exact same sound, until he was silent, accompanied by a thud and the slimy sound like eggs crashing to the ground. She followed the cannon shot and the realization that whoever pushed him was not far away. Felix rushed in the opposite direction. Taking for granted that the boy had screamed for the duration of the fall, Felix calculated that he had fallen from a height of one hundred and fifty meters. The other tribute was several floors above her, but she was nearby, and she just didn't care to be pushed. She kept the glow of the dome to her right and, after a few minutes of running, when the physical activity became too unbearable for her battered body, she entered one of the tunnels that overlooked the glass of the greenhouse.

Panting and bending over herself for the effort, she looked at the place where she had come. Stretching her arm, she could have touched the dome, but she did not consider it wise. From there she had an excellent aerial view of the area. She sat behind a wall that hid her from the gaze of any outside observer, and for once she was grateful for her small size. The head of a taller person would have peeped, making the hiding place ineffective.

She tried to exploit that new point of view to discover something she hadn't noticed from below, but she didn't see anything in particular. The glass tinged its interior with pink, but it did not hide the absence of the hybrid, nor the traces of its passage. Huge bloodstains spread on the floor: where the snake had dragged its victim, they presented themselves as a ruby stripe spread by a brush that she herself would have used to paint the fence, if only she had one. She shivered at the thought of Lapis torn by those fangs, remembered the snap that she had heard when the snake had shattered his bones and the terrified look that she had addressed when she had opened his torso and exposed his entrails, transforming it into a bait from dual function: to attract the ire of the hybrid on itself and to turn the Careers away from the exit that she and Jack had taken.

She looked for her watch in her inside pocket and, surprisingly, she also felt the soft contact of fabric on the skin, the handkerchief that Jack had given her days ago to stop the nose bleeding. He hugged it to his chest. By now the original blue of the fabric was invisible, corrupted by the dark vermilion of stale blood. A color that Felix had seen more often than she would have liked and with a frequency such as to assimilate it as normal, even if she knew perfectly well that it was not. Her hands were still dirty: the disinfectant, the blood of Lapis, Jack’s, her own, what did it matter? They were red, red, red and they could never be white again, clean ...

_Calm down, stay calm! Focus on something else! Focus on the path you took to get here. What did you notice?_

She clung to the fabric of the jacket with the same despair with which she clung to the flow of her thoughts, which diverted to a fact that had intrigued her but that she hadn't had time to analyze. The retreat had been necessary because of the fallen tribute.

It had taken her much longer to reach the dome. Certainly, the distance had not changed. It was probably due to the fact that when she ran away from the hybrid with Jack she tried to put as much distance between herself and the dangers behind her. The adrenaline rushed from the brain to the legs at light speed. At that moment she had no one to follow her, on the contrary, it was her who was literally going back to the snake's den, and she didn't have any adrenaline.

Never had her heart been so serious. So heavy that she seemed to be dragging a ballast that prevented her from walking. So cold. She realized that her arms were close together, as if to simulate the warmth of a hug.

“Attention, attention please!”

Felix winced in surprise. A communication?

“Congratulations to all the Tributes who have made it this far! We are proud of you, but Gamemakers want to test your worth with a challenge. A small feast is to be held at the Snake Glasshouse in an hour. But be careful ... only one will be able to enjoy our generosity. Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor! “

Felix almost laughed at the ridiculous offer. A party with so few participants left and moreover with a single gift up for grabs? _No thanks_.

There were seven of them left now. Surely the three remaining Careers would participate. The girls from 1 and 4 and the boy from 2. Felix felt an excitement inside her at the thought. Three Careers! And they were four! Both the tributes from 3, the girl from 9 and one of the boys from 5 or 11. One of them had died no more than an hour before and perhaps she would have found out that evening, unless the one left had decided to participate at the feast, in which case she would have seen them both in the sky and would not have had sufficient information to advance the hypothesis.

She did not doubt that many of them would take the bait. Desperation would have led them to extreme gestures, to reckless madness, the results of a mind that would no longer see things as they were but as they could have been.

In the eyes of a frightened Tribute, anxious to go home and having reached this point in the competition, it would not have seemed impossible to survive the umpteenth carousel ride.

It almost made her laugh. In fact, she burst out into a thunderous laugh that she had to suffocate with his hands pressed to her lips so as not to be heard. There was a smell of death in the Arena and she had the front row seats to enjoy the massacre of her opponents without having to lift a finger! If luck had been in her favor, that day could have significantly increased her chances of winning. It could bring them from 23-1 to 2-1. She could walk on the remains of other tributes and plan the murder of other.

Who could it have been?

Felix believed that the "one of the Careers" answer was too obvious, although that remained the most likely option. Their odds were always greater than others. Yet a part of her led her to consider the possibility of having to face one of the others, one of those like her, incredulous that they had reached this point.

At the stroke of the hour the Careers and the other fearless hearts would have thrown themselves into the fray and fought for the gift at stake. Assuming that the Careers were balanced in strength and training the fight could have gone on for quite some time, enough to allow her to get off in peace, take a look and decide how to proceed.

The possibility that was most hoped for was that everyone would die from the injuries and she would remain the only one at stake, but she was perfectly aware that she was hoping for a fantasy too dreamy to come true. But she still had so much time, at least fifty minutes, why not indulge in that sweet thought?

She found no reason not to: hear the sound of trumpets, the voice of Claudius Templesmith announcing her the winner, emerging alive from that tomb of dead stone, safe, hungry and exhausted and her hands ... her hands did not necessarily have to get more dirty.

Why not imagine going home welcomed by the arms of her father and the cheering cries of the rest of the District?

_Because Jack wouldn't be there. Jack won't be there._

Felix closed her eyes not to hear it, to drive that thought away from her head, but she couldn't do it. She could have never done it. She couldn't lie to herself even if she wanted to.

She knew Jack would die. That hand wound was too deep and had been medicated with too rudimentary means to make a difference. She was aware that his every effort had been in vain, that she had fought so strenuously against the inevitable for nothing. The best she could have given him was a little more time, a day or two of suffering. And then she let him go. What a nice friend she was. Another death she couldn't wash her hands of.

Always so dirty.

Always so filthy.

Always so red.

She was about to pass her tongue over her palm to try erase the blood with saliva, but then she remembered that coming into direct contact with blood - contaminated blood, since the Arena was anything but a sterile environment - would certainly not have helped. And then who was she kidding? She had so few fluids in her body that she would not be able to spit a little saliva even if threatened with death. Which she actually was. She laughed again.

_I'm going crazy in here; my watch is not enough to keep me healthy._

Forty minutes until hour zero.

She took one of the remaining tablets and turned it over between her fingers. Who knows what knowledge was needed to devise such a tool? Chemistry without a doubt. She knew only the fundamentals, however, nothing remotely enough to compete with something as advanced as the pad she held in her hand. Physics, algebra, engineering: those were her passions and her forte. She was missing her chess and music. Music, they taught it in District 3, but she was never really good at it. She was always sorry, because she loved listening to the melodies typical of her district while she worked, or the recordings of the winners of the singing competition that was held by her school every six months. Isaac had a beautiful voice, while Maya delighted in composing her own pieces using the software, they used to edit sounds.

Thirty minutes.

Not knowing what to do, she decided to untie the braids and then redo them herself. They were certainly a disaster. She threw away several strands of hair that remained in her hand, used her fingers as a comb and began to style her hair the best she could. She was unable to recreate the hairstyle designed by her stylist - even thinking about her gave her a tight pang in the chest - but she was able to make two tight braids. It was enough to pass the side locks under the central one and follow the line of the nape to the end. She made several mistakes and was pretty sure they were asymmetric, but she felt both tight, so she felt satisfied.

Fifteen minutes.

Why was she experiencing all that anxiety? She had decided not to go to the feast, so there was no danger. If there was a safe person in the Arena, that was her.

But she could not explain that feeling of occlusion in the chest, no. She was having difficulty breathing again.

_Inhale, exhale. Oxygen inside, carbon dioxide outside. Again._

She took her father's watch and stared spasmodically at the minute hand, which moved very slowly towards twelve. _Inhale, exhale._

She continued with the mechanical breathing operation for fourteen, very long minutes, when she heard a rough sound spread in the Arena.

In the exact center of the dome a small stone pillar had risen from the ground, with a single medium-sized backpack at its top.

In that same instant two people, coming from opposite ends of the glasshouse, came out inside the dome, heading towards the promised prize. They didn't even deign to look at it. They pounced on each other with unprecedented violence, swirling their swords with a mastery that made them dance rather than fight.

They were the male from District 2 and the girl from District 1, both with long-bladed swords. In a blink of an eye, the girl from 4 appeared out of nowhere and, in an attempt to hit the girl from two from behind, she was injured in the arm. None of the three stopped, none of them seemed to mind the slightest thing. And why should they have? Their whole life had led to that point. Their cries, their grunts, their fury left no room for a moment of subsidence, a moment of distraction: the blades hissed, ripped open the skin with the same ease with which they cut through the air. They were truly balanced: for each hit that hit, they received a wound, impossible to avoid because each of them had two opponents to face, instead of one. Despite herself, Felix could not take her eyes off them.

It seemed like they were dancing.

A ferocious and animal dance, scary, but still a dance, fast and hard and tight, but graceful in its own way. How much physical prowess, how much training, how much dedication had made it possible? Although Felix was terrified of it, she couldn't help feeling a certain wonder. Perhaps she too, if she were born in a Career district, would have reached that level of skill and self-confidence. Perhaps she would not have considered Victory as a mirage, but a concrete possibility.

The roar of the cannon distracted them all, 1 2, 4 and Felix, who winced in surprise. She felt panic build inside her. Who had just died? Who?

_Not Jack, not Jack, not Jack ..._

Her fingers stuck in the palm of her hand with anxiety and she felt the stinging pain branching out from there, but she could not stop. Too many sensations, too many emotions all together, she could not manage them, that was the only way to remain anchored to reality and not lose her mind.

The Careers had started fighting again, with more ferocity than before, but their blows had become more powerful, less precise, their verses quieter, because now - Felix realized it - now they were serious. Now they did not show any more, now they were fighting no holds barred. And they were tired, exhausted, and each of them was as good as the other two. Now they really had to fight for their lives.

Another figure rushed into the greenhouse. A boy. A hand, his right hand, dangled at his side, inert.

Felix rushed down.

She knew it was too late, she knew it. What was she going to do next? She didn’t know! She didn't know! But something had snapped inside her, like a too tight elastic ready to break and there she was, about to do it, while she ran at breakneck speed through the threatening corridors of the Arena. The only sound she heard was the rhythmic throb of her own heart beating like a drum on her eardrums, like a warlike march that charged her assault. She was going down the steps two by two: she landed with too much momentum on the last step of the ramp, and she fell on the ground landing on her left cheek. A thousand stars exploded in front of her and she got up with difficulty, gasping, resumed the race with a staggering but decisive step. Nothing would have stopped her. Not even the rumble of the cannon that almost made her fall again. A tearless sob escaped her lips, the anguish that gripped her in a vise: it could have been Jack, almost certainly it was Jack, she didn't want it to be Jack, _no, no, please, not Jack ..._

What an idiot! How had it occurred to him to go and get into a situation like this? Why hadn't she found a safe place to hide and wait? And why had _she_ decided to climb so high? Why had she chosen a hiding place so far away? Or was it just her mind that imagined everything and had finally succumbed to the illusion of the Gamemakers, who wanted to make her believe that there was no end to that damned place? Had she given in? Why were the corridors so many? Why did the stairs never end? Why…

She fell again, this time getting up was more difficult than before. She realized she had absolutely nothing with her. Neither the bottle, nor the tablets, nor a weapon. Jack had the knife. Unless he was dead ...

Another cannon shot, if she turned her gaze, could see what was happening beyond the glass, where a carnage was taking place. The last flight of stairs was the longest and most tiring. By now she was dragging her feet with fatigue and she stumbled into his greenhouse. It was too late.

She knew it the moment she set foot there.

The girl from 4 and the boy from 2 - Alicia and Nevio, as they were called - lay not too far from the pillar sprouted from the ground, dead. Her blond hair covered her face, her hand lay helpless on the floor, her grip loosened on her sword. Nevio's throat was torn. Felix did not give them further attention. She passed them as fast as she could, alarmed by the absence of her district mate. Where was he... and above all, where was the girl from District 1?

But apparently, it wasn't her she had to worry about.

Jack had been knocked down again. This time it wasn't a favorite the one fighting with him. To contend for the coveted backpack was the girl from District Nine, who was predictably getting the better of him. She didn't seem particularly strong, but she was not injured, and she even had a small scythe. She stabbed him in the chest once, twice, three times, until Jack's attempts to push her away became weaker.

“NO!”

The girl almost fell in fright. Her eyes met Felix's, then pounced on the backpack that Jack was still clutching, she tore it from his hands and with unheard of violence she swirled it against his head, so strong as to make his glasses fly away.

Felix had already rushed over to them, but it was too late now. The girl from 9 had run away, swift as a hare, and Felix had much more to think about. She fell and dragged herself close to his companion's body with the strength of despair. She felt no relief at hearing the boy's breathing, because it was all too evident that it would have not lasted for long.

The roar of the third cannon made her scream with fear, but it wasn't for Jack, his chest still moved, still raised and lowered ...

“Jack ...” she hugged him gently, trying not to hurt him, trying to protect him from the world around them, from that girl who could have come back at any moment and killed them and won. The boy had his eyes open but empty, out of focus, the pallor of his skin created a ghostly contrast with the raven hair. Felix stroked the back of his neck and with horror felt it wet. _Blood._ On her hands. Again.

His shoulder was also bleeding. Irregular cuts, the result of an inexperienced hand, but the blade had been terribly sharp, because the jacket and the shirt underneath were reduced to shreds. She tried to tear them off to get a clearer view of her wounds, but he grabbed her arm spasmodically and shook his head. He tried to speak but nothing came from his lips. Only the head that moved in jerks, saying no. His hand squeezed her elbow, the only part of her he could reach, and meanwhile she cradled him, looking around desperately. There was no one who could help her. The Careers were dead. Jack was dying. She was alone. “Jack ... Don't ... Please, _please ...”_ Please what? Please don't die? Please do not leave me? He too seemed to tell her the same thing. _Please don't. Please do not leave me. Please, that's enough._ This was what she perceived from him _, he_ said _no,_ and from his mouth that did not speak, and from his eyes that slowly closed and from his grip that became weaker and weaker.

Felix had hugged him in an embrace she had never given to anyone. How light he was in her arms. She felt his gasps and his breath hurried more and more, his skin burning and his heart beating weaker and weaker, then she felt nothing. Only the cannon.

“No! No, no, no, no, Jack, _Jack… “_ she shook him to wake him up, but he remained impassive. The eyes were like marble. The head dangled by inertia. The sight made her scream just like the boy who had been thrown from a hundred and fifty meters had screamed, a long, broken cry, a request for help that no one would have granted. Jack was dead and what lay next to her was nothing more than a body, an inanimate object that she would never be able to fix. _I can't- I ... I can fix, I can fix ..._

Surely the Careers had bandages, medicines, something that could fix the situation, an anesthetic, something to stop the infection ...

A sob ripped through her chest. Then another, and yet another. Felix burst into tears like a child and screamed like a wounded beast. She had never, never in her life, not even when her mother died, cried like that. Maybe because her mother hadn't died in her arms and her blood hadn't smeared her hands, her clothes, her face, maybe because she hadn't felt her heart stop against hers that instead was beating madly, maybe because she hadn't felt the last breath flow away from her mouth and his soul, or whatever made Jack himself, leave forever the body, making it so heavy on her shoulder ... So heavy, too much, so much that she couldn’t bear it ... she had never put hands in your hair, or punched the wall, or bitten her palm to try something, anything, _anything other than that pain ..._

Then the expression _broken heart_ was true, it made sense. She felt a terrible pain in her chest, where Jack had been and now there was nothing, where she had erected a thousand defenses and created a thousand barriers and all of them fell apart before the eyes of all Panem. “ _Jack, please open your eyes ...”_

But Jack didn't wake up. Felix did not want to believe it, she wanted to abandon all traces of rationality left, yet Jack would never have made fun of it like that. He would never have allowed such suffering, he would never, never, _ever have_ abandoned it to the extreme pain that his now deformed voice expressed. He would never keep her waiting so long. So, Felix surrendered to the evidence, surrendered to the truth he had predicted and even hoped: Jack was dead, and had died at the hands of others, not hers.

So why couldn't she breathe? So why couldn't she even think _inspire and inhale, inhale and exhale_ then why did she feel herself dying and instead she continued to live, why did she feel reality breaking and the world falling apart? Why did she have feelings so different from the reality around her? The Arena was silent, taciturn, and she whimpered like a mutilated beast and nobody killed her, nobody put an end to her pain, possible that they were all so bad, so merciless, so devoid of compassion? Had they put her in that arena to die and now that she wanted to do it, would they let her live? What cruelty was that? What had she done to deserve it? _She was fixing broken pieces! She wanted to be a mechanic! She was playing chess!_

Was that really to blame?

What fault did Jack have, who lay beside her, his eyes half-open and empty, aimlessly, discolored, not his, glassy, _frightening ..._ Felix could not stand the sight of that thing. It wasn't Jack, he didn't have glasses ... _the glasses!_

They were several meters down, a lens now broken - like her heart, like her life, like everything now. The standard frame of District Three reminded her of home and never like that moment did she want the protection of her father's arms, the tranquility of his shop, the rationality of a move on the chessboard. Everything made sense there. Here, nothing made sense. For an instant Felix considered the idea of keeping them to herself but decided to put them back on the owner's face, because certainly Isaac and his parents would have liked that... Another sob that took her breath away. They no longer had Jack! Their family was destroyed and dismembered, just like him, just like his corpse, just like all the families of all the tributes that fell in those sixty-nine years of the Games, just like all those who would come forever because they couldn't, wouldn't stop them ... she was annihilated, just like the high spheres wanted. They were nothing but pieces in their hands. Felix had been at their game all the time - because when she left him, this was what she wanted, someone else to kill him for her, she wanted that the blame didn't fall on her - and now that she got what she wanted she realized that Jack was not the King, because the King was dead, but the game was not over. It was up to the Queen to checkmate. And she ... she was livid. She was their piece. _You wanted him to die by someone else's hands,_ her mother's voice murmured in her head, _be careful what you wish for._ Now ... Now the game continued, and Felix, as the good piece she was, still had one thing to do.

She had to kill the girl from District Nine.

_She wanted to_ kill her.

She wanted revenge. She wanted to feel her life flow away from her in the same way she had felt life flow away from Jack, she wanted her to suffer exactly as she was suffering and she cried because she knew it was not possible, whoever Lucy loved - that was the name of the girl from Nine, that was the name of the dead girl - whoever was dear to her was out of there, out of that Arena, in a place that Felix could never have reached and on which she could never have unleashed her own anger. She realized that she was plunging into a spiral that did not lead to anything good, that she would not survive without a plan, that in reality she did not even care about her own survival ... What she wanted was to assassinate the girl from District 9. By now Felix was lost in the dark. _But when you wander in the shadows too long, you start to see._ She saw a dead woman walking, not far from her. A woman who did not deserve to live because she had severed the thread of Jack's life, because she had looked him in the eyes as she skewered him, because Felix had looked _her_ in the eyes when she had prayed her and then she had escaped and got rid of Jack's body in the same way she gets rid of her chores.

Felix gently put the glasses on Jack's face. She lowered his eyelids and shivered at the touch. That was an object now. The spark that gave him life, the energy that had moved him in his fifteen years of life - _fifteen_ \- was gone. There was no tool in the world that could have fixed him. Not even with a good mechanic like she was. she took the knife from his belt and placed it on her left side. It was as if Jack had foreseen his own death. _You can't fix everything, Felix. You have to learn to let go._ Kneeling at his side she was shaking her head, unable to do so. She wanted to stay there. She wanted to fall asleep embracing him and give him all her warmth, to bring him back to life. What did it matter to her if the bodies of others lay a few feet down, to whom no one was showing the condolence she was giving to Jack? No hovercraft had come for them because Felix was staying there. If she refused to leave, how long would they wait?

The answer was soon revealed.

For an instant, night fell. The pink light of the dome, the glow of the minerals, all disappeared. Then only the minerals from the exit to her right, the one the killer had taken, lit up. Felix quickly understood the Gamemakers’ intentions. They intended to lead her to her destiny through a strange light more frightening than the darkness itself.

Felix closed her eyes. She did not fear that darkness, although she felt that painful sense of loss. She wiped away the tears and stroked Jack's forehead for the last time. If she had died, their coffins would have been placed in the same pit, in the area of the cemetery that their parents would have deemed most appropriate. If she survived ... there would be nothing left to caress.

Part of her knew that what she was doing was not allowed. She couldn't stay there next to his body longer than that. She could not show such profound condolence on live television. Not because it didn't make an audience, the contrary, but because it was an expression of something unacceptable, almost seditious. When the Hunger Games were conceived as punishment for the district rebellion, they intended to plant the seed of discord not only between different districts, but also within the district itself. How many times had it happened that both Tributes from District 2 reached the final? In the Capitol eyes she had to be grateful for the opportunities she had gained that day: not having to assassinate her friend and the chance to win. It mattered little that all of that no longer mattered to her. She didn't want to win. She wanted to kill her. Once the energy to hate was exhausted, there would be nothing left.

She made sure that Jack's glasses were in place, on his bloodless face, then she got up - how hard it was, it was like dragging a rock every time she moved her feet - and she followed the bright path they had created especially for her. Nobody would have expected that ending, not even her. Three against Nine. There was poetry in that concept, a metric that only a mathematical mind like hers would have been able to grasp.

She followed the fragments of light out of the glasshouse and through the corridors, climbing stairs and crossing bridges, until, not long after, the anthem of Panem spread with its merciless solemnity penetrating into the bones, locking her in place. Certainly the feast had had the desired effects. Only that morning there were eight of them. Now there were two left.

The District 1 girl, Anya; the boy from 2, Nevio; the girl from 4, Alicia; Jack; the males from 5, 7 and 11: Louis, Woody and Bash ... Berry? It didn't matter at all. By now they were just names. The fallen tributes had to be considered lucky if there was someone who still remembered them, even if that someone would never have moved a finger to save them from certain death, even if she had had the opportunity. Except for one, of course. He had shone in the sky one last time, as bright as he had been in life, then he was gone forever, giving way to perfect strangers whose disappearance had not been complained by anyone.

Once the music was over, the Arena returned to the same brightness as before. She no longer glimpsed the pink halo of the greenhouse, but the minerals shone with that cold light that had illuminated them for the duration of the Games. It must have lasted four days, five at most. She wasn't sure of the time because after healing Jack they had both sunk into a dreamless sleep that was too long to quantify. Thinking about him did not threaten to make her cry again. That hole in the center of the chest was always there, even when her mind was focused on something else, as at that moment, as there was only one reason that would have pushed the Gamemakers to interrupt her very personal milky way. She was close.

“Where are you?”

The voice came out hoarse after all that crying and screaming, so she cleared her throat and tried again, getting a tone that was audible to nearby human ears. “Where are you? I know you are near.”

She heard a rustle on her left and the tip of a boot peeking out from one of the columns. She could not even hide properly. What an inept.

“Get out of there, or I'll come get you.”

The girl must have put two and two together in her head and understood that there was really no way out. She could not hide more than that, she could not wait for the storm to pass and re-emerge once the waters had calmed down. She had to face it because the only obstacle left was Felix. She was holding Jack's dagger in her hand and was physically restraining herself so as not to jump on her and make a mess of her.

And there she was, coming out into the open, wary, dirty and with hollow cheeks, greasy hair and chapped lips. Of the beautiful girl praised by all for her eight in training, only a pale shadow remained, an ugly imitation that seemed almost disrespectful in a place like this. Maybe she looked grotesque too, but she thought it was right. What she was about to do was grotesque. Her intentions, her heart, were grotesque. There was nothing human about her at the time, only the abyss.

She noticed that the girl had a bloody bandage on her hand. The bandages would have been white, sterile, clean, had it not been for the bloodstain that widened visibly. “Was that the gift? Sterile gauze?”

“And some food” said the girl. “They were useful to me because he bit me. He almost ripped the meat off my hand.”

“Jack?”

“I don't know what his name was, he was your district mate.”

“His name was Jack. Jack Finnigan.”

“Yeah, him….” She threw the backpack on the ground and squeezed her small scythe with her left hand, ready to defend herself. But she didn't dare approach, not yet. Neither of them was a fighter. But there was one thing that distinguished Felix from that girl. Felix did not care to win. Felix just wanted revenge. She wanted to take something in exchange for her loss. Each action corresponds to an equal and opposite one. The law of nature. And Felix was a model citizen of nature.

She advanced toward her with the intention of pushing her against a column. The girl stepped back but began to wave the scythe in front of her to keep her away. She described an imperfect half-circle because that was not her main hand. The right had knocked Jack out. Ironic, even that. Felix intercepted the parable of the scythe with her arm, pushed with all the force she had forward and upward in an attempt to lock her wrist on the column, but she began to fidget and kick, to react with any means she possessed , because she wanted to live, but she did not understand that she had done wrong. Felix tried to kneel her in the groin and was only half successful in her intent. 

She hit her but was hit back in the head, her nose broke again. Golden stars shone in front of her eyes, yet the adrenaline pushed everything into the background, made her shake the knife in front of her to keep her away, while wiping her nose with her sleeve and preparing herself for yet another nasal bleeding. Lucy was bent over and holding her head with her hand. She looked at her angrily and pounced on her, but Felix was ready and took her by the wrists on the fly, fighting the disadvantage of her stature, squeezing the fragile wrists as much as possible between her fingers, sticking her dirty nails into the skin. Lucy squeaked but charged her with all the power she was capable of and almost overwhelmed her: Felix was forced to slide to one side and let her go, but in doing so she pulled her a little to herself, trying to unbalance her. It worked just a little: Lucy staggered forward and she had time to push her and throw her on the ground, but the girl fell on her knees and crawled away, screaming at the hard contact between the wound and the ground. Felix pounced on her, stabbed her in the back, once, twice, three times, holding on to her clothes to remain on her back because she was struggling, good heavens if she was struggling!

Felix lost her balance and slid to the floor. Lucy tried to drag forward crying. She was trying to grab her scythe.

_She_ was crying? 

How dare she!?

Anger seized Felix and pushed her to get up, to limp as quickly as possible to the abandoned scythe one meter away from the girl and to send it away with a kick, to then crush the injured hand of the girl under her boot. Lucy cried like a wounded animal. _Music_. She continued to exert pressure, so much that she felt the blood flow out and a speck widen on the stone below. Lucy screamed and struggled and Felix gave her a kick that opened a gash on her lips, as red as the wounds on her back. It was not enough, it was not enough.

Maybe she had turned into an animal? She had smelled the blood and was now mouth watering. Now, the two of them were Careers. They balanced in strength, fought with no holds barred, but who was winning, huh? Who?

“You! You're winning!”

She didn't realize she had screamed until Lucy replied in a scratchy voice, altered by the falling blood. Felix straddled her, just as she had done with Jack, took her by the collar and poured on the girl all her hatred and contempt. “YOU KILLED HIM! IT WAS YOU! WHY DID YOU DO THAT”

Even her head dangled like Jack's when she shook her. It was written that she was to become a corpse. But the question seemed to shake her far more than her hands. “What? It’s the Games! I _had to!_ ”

“NO! You didn’t have to do anything!” She didn't have to kill him. “I implored you not to do it!”

But what could she care about Felix's prayers? She tried to push her away from her, pushing her away with her hands and shaking as much as she could, but the old and new wounds were too much. Felix sensed it. She wasn't sure because she was on the verge of falling and not getting up again as well - the throbbing pain in her knee… when was she hit there? - and then she stuck the knife into her opponent's shoulder at exactly the same spot where she hit Jack. “You! Deserve! To! DIE!”

She underlined each word with a stab, feeling the blood splash in Lucy’s face, her hands becoming less decisive, her legs less powerful. It was right that way, it was right that she paid in blood, that she was conscious all the time, that she was aware she was going to die, that she had died because of her, because of a small girl, but determined to avenge her friend ...

She spat more blood on Lucy's face. It ran from her nose into her mouth and she just couldn't digest it. That thought made her laugh and stabbed her in the center of her chest. She was still moving! Now she would finish her ...

She took the handle of the knife and pulled, but it didn't come out of the girl’s chest. She panicked for a moment - how would she kill her? - then the evidence showed itself in all its simplicity. She had two healthy hands _._ And a carotid tense right in front of her.

And so, just as it had happened to her during the Bloodbath, she put her palms on the girl's throat, and began to squeeze. Lucy stirred more forcefully than before, though, as Felix herself knew, she didn't even imagine that she had all that ardor left. It was difficult to balance and hold on with all the anger she had - her bloody hands slid over her skin - but it would have killed her, no doubt. She saw her face go cyanotic, her hands struggling furiously on her face in an attempt to push her away, her body moving blindly in an attempt to steal a very small breath of air ... But Felix felt it. Just as she wanted.

The life that left her.

Soon, or long after, she would not have been able to say it, time had ceased to exist, with one last, very long, hissing gasp, Lucy stopped moving and Felix continued to squeeze, even when the trumpets rang with joy and the voice of Claudius Templesmith announced:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the Victor of the Sixty-ninth Hunger Games, Felix Facilis!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like this one!  
> Yuo can find us on tumblr @superkattivehblr


	3. No-one

The rhythmic _beep_ of her heart carried her gently to reality.

She emerged from deep and dreamless sleep, blinking, perceiving her own breath, unable to focus on the surrounding environment: it was white, almost grainy, like a mist. She had a strange sensation of occlusion in the chest.

A large, calloused hand stroked hers. _Daddy?_

No, it wasn't her father, but he was close to that. “Beetee?”

“Good morning.” Felix could hear the smile in his tone of voice. “You finally woke up.”

By now fully conscious, Felix tried to sit down, but found herself unable to do so. Beetee pressed a button on a remote control and the top end of the bed reclined, allowing her to look at her mentor in the face. Felix gasped from the effort. It was difficult to breathe. Different. She sensed a change that she could not decipher. The monitor that recorded her heart rate gave voice to her agitation, beeping faster. 

“No, don't fret. Here, hold on.” Beetee gently placed her glasses on her nose and sat back on the chair, giving her a loving look. Those were not her glasses. She could see! She could see very clearly! Her usual glasses, the white ones with the typical standard frame from District 3, were never this good. Her nearsightedness had worsened over time, but they could not afford new glasses. Those she wore at that moment, on the other hand ... “I didn't remember that the world was so rich in details.”

Beetee smiled at her, but Felix felt his concern. “What's up? What happened?”

“The Games have been over for three days now. Now it’s evening. You had an excellent recovery, the doctors are very happy with you.” He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips and sighed. He always did that when he was tired or nervous. “The Games have been quite exciting, everyone says so. Not as entertaining as two years ago, but not as boring as last year.”

“What's the problem then?”

“They only lasted five days, Felix. A particularly short edition. The enthusiasm is kept alive by the Gamemakers, but they fear that in the absence of your prompt appearance it may wane.”

“But ...” Felix coughed. That feeling of occlusion just didn't go away. “But usually it always takes a few days before the Victor shows up to the public ...”

“Three days is all they have given you. Tomorrow at three o'clock there will be a summary of your Games and the day after tomorrow the interview with Caesar. This is why doctors are extremely satisfied with you. You are recovering well and reacting positively to intensive treatments. “

“Sure, I guess they're really worried about my health.” Felix pursed her lips. Since she was undergoing intensive treatments, she must have suffered more damage than she remembered. “Diagnosis and prognosis?”

“You have undergone a considerable deviation to the nasal septum. Twice. It was fixed for you first. Your nose is exactly as it used to be.”

“But I can't breathe. Not well. Not like before. What happened?”

“Secondly” Beetee seemed to ignore her. “Malnutrition. You were extremely thrifty with both water and food, but then you lost them when they brought you to the Snake Glasshouse for the first time. After that, you only fed on pills. You have lost so, so much weight.”

“Yes, I noticed it too.” Felix tried to peek under the covers, to see if the ribs were still so protruding, but a tight bandage that until then she hadn't noticed prevented her. That was what oppressed her. “What happened to my chest? I do not remember anything.”

“It's normal for you not to remember anything.” Beetee took off his glasses with a quick gesture and began to wipe the lenses with a hem of his shirt. This too he did when he was not comfortable. “You don't remember anything because nothing happened to you.”

“Then why? Why this bandage? “ The acoustic signals of the electrocardiogram became more anxious. “Please tell me.”

“The Gamemakers have decided to have surgery on you. Food insufficiency and intense physical activity led to a drastic weight loss that affected your physical appearance in a too invasive way to be tolerated. According to them, it was for your sake.” His tone perfectly expressed all the blame he felt. “I did everything in my power to avoid it ... But it was worth nothing. I'm sorry.”

“It's not your fault.” Felix murmured. And so, they touched her breasts because she wasn't attractive enough. “They would have noticed when I took off my shirt to give it to Jack.”

For several minutes they remained silent, both contemplating their failures. A thrust of sadness hit her. It would have been pain, had it not been for the medicines in her body that diluted every emotion, even unbelief and offense for what they had done to her. Part of herself was outraged, but that part was so small and distant that it hardly had a voice. It was more surprising that she was surprised. They sent twenty-four children to the slaughterhouse every year, was disposing of her body for their use and consumption really so unthinkable?

She touched her breasts gently. They were not as they used to be. Before the Arena deformed them so much to offend the taste of the Capitol. Beetee had to guess her thoughts because he told her what the doctors had explained him all pleased. They were the latest generation prostheses that would last a lifetime. The graft would have allowed its tissues to develop following the natural shape of the breast, finding a functional support both in the short and long term: at the time, they were mainly used to give a minimum of volume to the figure, which would have been artfully emphasized by her stylist. Over time, following the diet they had prescribed, the breasts would return to normal, only slightly more abundant - in the absence of the prosthesis there was no guarantee that it would return as before. Perhaps someone had made an inappropriate comment about her, because Beetee's account had been pungent and angry.

“I don't understand.” Felix closed her eyes. Tired, she was so tired. “If they fixed my nose and touched my breasts, why didn't they fix my sight?”

“A survey has been carried out. To fill the wait.” Beetee looked mortified, as if it was his fault. “The Capitol residents like you more with glasses than without. They chose the color and the model of the frame.”

Obviously.

“How's Wiress?”

“She stayed here. We will all be back together.”

“No, not all together.” The medicines in her circulation had to be really powerful, because that thought would have destroyed her if she had been completely lucid. Instead she felt only touched by sadness, as if a shield were placed between her and the wave of pain ready to overwhelm her. The impact barely touched her, and she was grateful for that. “Is she sad because he didn't win but I did?”

“One is always sad when tributes are lost. Always. Unfortunately, that's something you'll learn too.” Beetee pressed another button and two Avoxes entered the room, placing two plates on the reclining table attached to Felix's bed. Then they left.

“I'm here to make sure you eat” her mentor discovered the first course and the smell of the broth spread through the air. He smiled at her disappointed expression. “It's not that District 4 rice you like so much, but your stomach can't handle it right now.”

That miserable meal, in fact, filled her stomach to the brim, so much so that she could only taste a bite of the cooked apple that accompanied it. Drowsiness began to make its way into her. She rubbed her eyes from under her glasses but didn't want to risk taking them off. Removing them meant being overcome by sleep, sleep meant losing inhibitory brakes, control, and who would stand guard now that she was alone?

“Don't worry.” Beetee must have understood what was going on in her mind. He took off her glasses and stroked her cheek. “There are no dangers here. But I'll stay by you until you fall asleep.”

Felix was just in time to nod and slipped back into oblivion.

When she woke up on the table there was a vegetable soup that almost made her cry for her delicacy and mashed potato so substantial that she couldn't even finish half of it. It was so tasty, she hoped to get the recipe so she could do it again at home. At the foot of the bed there was a bathrobe and slippers on the floor. Getting up was a rather tiring undertaking, especially because she was extremely aware of every movement her breasts made. She could see in her head those foreign bodies inside her, which were just jumping with every step she took. She wondered if that extreme awareness would remain in her thoughts, like a perpetually running secondary program, or if habit would turn it into something normal. She didn't know what to wish for.

A slight chatter came from the opposite side of the door. Beetee and Wiress were talking to her escort and stylist, Rufus and Daesee. Rufus saw her first and burst into tears of joy. Daesee took her face in her hands and printed a loud kiss on her lips under the exasperated gaze of her mentors. Felix let Rufus and Daesee do what they wanted to do - embrace her, primarily, and express all their contentment regardless of her personal physical space - then hugged Wiress and threw herself into Beetee's arms. It was like hugging her father and Felix held him tight. Wiress stroked her hair and told her to go with Daesee. “You have to prepare for ...”

“For the Highlights of the Games” Beetee concluded for her. “How do you feel? Weak?”

“A little” Felix admitted. But the heaviness that began to numb it was not of physical origin, they both knew it well. The medicine residues were leaving her body.

“Come on, come with me! We have to make you perfect for tonight! You will see what a dress I made!” Daesee took her by the arm and practically dragged her to the elevator, pushed the button impatiently and led her all the way up the third floor to her bedroom door. Felix lowered the handle and was hit by the screams of joy from her preparatory staff.

“TREASURE! How beautiful you are, how happy I am to see you!”

“You were great in the Arena!”

“And what courage did you have! You were TERRIFIC!”

Attica, Sulpicia and Nathan wrapped her in a collective embrace, filling her with caresses and kisses that Felix did not refuse. They chatted about the games and how exciting they had been and how they couldn't believe that she, of all the tributes, had managed to win. What about the way she killed Lucy? Spectacular! A real winner!

Felix turned off the audio and took refuge in a mutism that lasted for the duration of her preparation, from the first bath to the last touch to the chosen hairstyle. The surgery job kindly offered by the Gamemakers did not go unnoticed, so much so that Daesee complained that nobody had asked for _her_ opinion. 

“I'm your stylist, I'll have to know these things, won't I?”

She did not wait for her reply, ordering the preparers to sprinkle her body with white paint. They brushed the pale white makeup brushes with speed and paying particular attention to her chest, asking if they hurt her. Felix shook her head, reassuring them that they were very gentle and that they had the touch of a butterfly. Nothing seemed to make them prouder, so they continued the work with more enthusiasm than before. Their chatter was so thick that she didn't even have to pretend to pay attention. Her thoughts drifted dangerously to forbidden territory, but she could not do anything to avoid it. Several times she rediscovered herself staring at her hands, perfectly clean and healed, looking for traces of blood. Her hands were also sprinkled with pearly makeup, but that was not enough to appease her search. When they announced they were done and Felix had taken on the color of a ghost, Daesee led her to the closet, where a mannequin was sticking out in the center of an infinite collection of clothes. Daesee had a refined artistic sense, but it could not be said that she was a particularly sensitive person. There was in fact only one problem in that wonderful dress.

It was blood red.

A red so bright that Felix stepped back as soon as she saw it. The bodice had a V-neck that climbed up to the shoulders which would cleverly hide the thinness of the shoulder blades. Thousands of rubies stormed the fabric, reflecting the lights of the closet. The huge skirt looked like the corolla of a tulip, and tulips themselves were finely embroidered along its entire length. Thousands and thousands of fabric flowers scattered throughout the skirt that rose on the bust and came to life on the neckline, through an unknown technique that had made them three-dimensional.

“I am not wearing it.”

“Of course, you are! You put it on!” replied an outraged Daesee. “Do you know how long it took me to design it? In order to finally bring it to life?”

“I do not care. There are hundreds of clothes here. Let me wear another one.” A dress of that color after all the blood she had seen in the Arena? Daesee must have gone mad if she thought Felix would ever wear red again.

“I don't think so, miss.” Daesee pushed her towards the mannequin and forced her to raise her arms. “This dress tells a story. _Your_ story.”

“I don't want to wear a red dress, neither today, nor ever. For the rest of my life. I've had enough.” She rediscovered herself, however, unable to rebel against Daesee, who with the help of two Avoxes women was putting on the dress layer by layer. Her voice had started to whine as she implored her to change her mind. “Please, Daesee, let me put on any other dress, any one!”

“No, I'm sorry. Moreover it makes your beautiful eyes stand out.” Daesee squeezed her corset and walked around her, watching her work. Perhaps she pitied her, because a smile softened her gaze. “I’ll tell you what. This will be the only red dress that I will make you wear, okay? Only this, then you won't even see the shadow of it. What's your favorite color?”

“Blue” murmured Felix. “Dusty blue.”

“Perfect. And now, the finishing touch!” she applied two satin trainings, one per shoulder, with pins that blended perfectly with the flowers of the neckline. Daesee took a kind of palette from the table and finished her makeup with a brush. Then she called out the rest of the staff. “Come and see! Our winner is _perfect!_ ”

They dragged her in front of a huge mirror, but among all those extravagant-looking people Felix had a hard time recognizing herself.

Her hair was tightly pulled back into a high ponytail that fell over her shoulders in soft wavy volutes. Normality ended there. Her whole body was painted a translucent white, making her look like a porcelain doll. The lower lip had a single vertical strip of red lipstick, while the upper lip was completely colored, in a variation of the current fashion of The Capitol, which saw both lips crossed in the center by a single color strip. Maybe Daesee wanted to launch a new fashion. Two large red dots, one per cheek, matched with the carmine mascara that surrounded her eyes. The dress exploded in all its arrogance, so heavy and bulky, with a wide skirt and train that looked like a queen's cloak. Attica proposed to add a pair of vermilion gloves and the suggestion was accepted willingly. It was clear that Daesee had loved to see her covered in blood in the Arena, because she had given her the clothes of a warrior princess who used to paint her face with the blood of her enemies. But she had failed so miserably. Felix did not see a princess in front of her. Nor a warrior. She could not even see herself, suffocated in those clothes that were so unfamiliar. The glasses were the only indication that there, under that cloud of blood, there was Felix Facilis, from District 3. She searched deeply in the reflection for something that signaled her presence. But she found nothing, only a white face and a defeated look.

In the blink of an eye she found herself waiting for her turn to show up on stage, just as she had done several days before for the interview before the Games. Only then she had waited for the other tributes. That now lay three meters underground, all of them. Perhaps they too felt that enormous weight on the chest and the air lacking. Maybe she was dead too, because you can't live without breathing, right? It cannot be …

“Take a deep breath. Breathe in and out.” Beetee's voice came from far away, but still had the power to trigger her on alert. He raised his hands in a pacifying sign and Felix felt shame for that irrational reaction. She was no longer in the Arena. Despite what she believed, she was alive and well and safe. No more tesserae, no more Reaping. Nobody could have thrown her in there again. She inhaled and exhaled, just as her mentor had suggested.

“Now you don't have to talk, it's just the summary of your Games. What do you think you should do? “ Felix found Beetee's way of doing reassuring, as a professor who knows that his pupil knows the answer. In that he was no different from Caesar: both tried to make their interlocutor shine. Attica, Sulpicia and Nathan had gone on stage followed by Rufus and Daesee, and now it would be Beetee's turn. They would announce him any moment, then it would be her turn. What did she think she should do?

“Hold on” Felix replied. “We're not done yet.”

Beetee patted her on the cheek and left for the stage, greeted by a warm applause from the audience. _What do you think you should do?_ That question revealed many implications. First of all, that she didn't have to act as herself. She was not herself during her first interview, she was not going to be herself that day. And not even the next, when she was supposed to speak. The interview awaited her, and she should have put up a facade, because a tribute cannot spit in the face of the Capitol. Not if they put on an astonishing show like she did.

That question had been Beetee's way of reminding her that the Games were not over, that she had to continue to face them and that she had to do it from that moment, because her name had just been pronounced by the presenter on stage.

Applauses hit her with the force of a tsunami. She raised her arm to greet the audience and gave the crowd a cold smile. Daesee had wanted to make her a queen and as such she would have behaved. Nothing could have mattered to her, nor scratched her. What had happened in the Arena would have been presented as a small défaillance. Caesar greeted her with a warm embrace and invited her to sit on the golden armchair that looked like a throne. Felix took a seat and, after a few ritual questions, began the three-hour screening that represented her Games.

The line they had chosen to tell her story represented her as a clever calculator, from the tiny five she got in the training to the distance she had kept with Caesar and the audience during the interview. She was good in the Arena too: none of the others had worked out a plan to try to find their way, not even the Careers, and in fact random encounters between tributes had been sporadic, although very exciting. Even with one less member, the Careers had been deadly.

She actually didn't care much about her summary. Seeing herself on television was strange because she didn't recognize herself. She saw a smart, skinny girl, but that was another person. Had that been her true self, she would never have carried the weight that Jack clearly represented. She would not have fought with all her might against the inevitable: she would not have gone in search of supplies to help him, she would not have undressed to create bandages, she would not have rushed to his aid on that last fatal day. She would have stayed on the sidelines and waited for the others to die and take care of the last one. Felix did not engage in lost causes, and instead here she was, to stop Jack's bleeding that was destined to kill him.

She had the impression that, reaching the screen, she could have reached Jack and bring him back. She looked at him on the screen while he laughed without knowing what hatchet would fall on him. He spoke to her unaware of the fate that awaited him. He greeted her by saying that he loved her, and that he hoped that she would win. Those had been the last words he had spoken to her.

The only thing that betrayed the girl's emotions were her nails stuck in the armrests of the armchair.

The switch of emotions went off when she saw herself groping towards the boy's almost lifeless body. The girl who looked around desperately for help could not have been her. Felix did not believe she was capable of the delicacy that person had in cradling the body of her friend, nor of the condolence she was showing. At that point there were only two pieces left in the game.

The violence she felt exploding inside when Lucy made her appearance on the screen was disarming. By now she must have pierced the upholstery of her armchair with her nails, but she didn't care. What she had done to her was not enough, it was not enough. She felt the girl's tight skin once more under her skin and squeezed her hands, ready to kill her again. Each action corresponds to an equal and opposite reaction, of course, but then where was Jack? She had given a life back to nature, Lucy's worthless and despicable life. So …where was the bright future that Jack deserved? Didn't Lapis count as a sacrificial victim as well? How many more people would she have had to kill to get him back? To see his eyes come alive again and his smile shine on his lips?

The blast of the trumpets and the announcement of her victory brought her back to reality. Felix had continued to tighten Lucy's throat even when Claudius had declared her the winner. She looked like a beast, with blood dripping from her nose and bared teeth. The eyes were almost completely black, soulless.

Felix was frightened.

She could not recognize herself in Capitoline fashion that made her the same as all the others. She didn't recognize herself in that frightened and irrational girl who had gone against the predictable outcomes of reality to keep someone alive, who then died anyway. But with that girl, the violent and murderous one who wanted to kill once again, she could identify with that girl.

President Snow made his entrance greeted by the roar of the crowd. Felix got up automatically, like a good soldier who greets the captain of the regiment. The President smiled at her and Felix felt a shiver cross her back. The way he looked at her made her feel ashamed of herself. He was _satisfied._

“Congratulations”he said, before pinning the crown on her head. Throughout her life Felix had considered herself an expert chess player, but only then did she realize that she was nothing more than a piece in the expert hands of President Snow.

“Thanks” murmured the girl. 

Queens do not thank, but the pieces that survive the game do.

Dinner was less heavy than expected. People couldn't wait to take a picture with her, to shake her hand and to congratulate her on the thrilling performance she offered them. “If I only knew, I wouldn't have hesitated to sponsor you!”

President Snow did not find it necessary to exchange further talk with her, which she was grateful for, but in the end they were forced to be photographed together for the benefit of the most famous newspapers in the capital. Felix shivered for all those interminable seconds, she was so tense that she forgot how to breathe, and nevertheless she felt a change in the air, a persistent rose scent that seemed to emanate from the president himself, but it made no sense, why would he impregnate himself so much? The evening passed between receptions and presentations and in the end Felix was unable to eat anything, so when she finally arrived in her room, washed and with a semblance of herself reflected in the mirror, she ordered a pumpkin and cheese cream for dinner, even if she could not eat much.

She fell asleep, exhausted, and when the next day she opened her eyes she felt the weight of reality on her. She lost her breath once more and forced herself to breathe mechanically. At two o'clock she would have had to confront Caesar about her Games, imprinted in her mind for the experience and in that of the citizens for the brilliant report of the previous day. They would have gone through every single moment of that exciting edition. She was continuing with dignity a cycle started by the fierce Enobaria, followed by the two siblings from District 1 who had enchanted everyone and acted as a tail light for the brightest edition of all: Finnick Odair's, who had won only four years before her. At the moment Finnick was eighteen years old and apparently, he loved to amuse himself with his friends from the Capitol who had offered him luck and glory. She vaguely wondered if she would become like him in the following years. She realized that she was one of the very few Victor from a non-Career district and that District 3 would breathe a sigh of relief from the narrowness that year after more than fifteen years without a winner.

All those things were supposed to make her happy and fill her with pride, somehow, but all she felt was a stolid feeling of unease that literally prevented her from standing up. She had been awake for some time but had no intention of abandoning the safety of the bed and the softness of the blankets. She didn't want to go through another make-up session, she didn't want to pretend that everything was fine, she didn't want to remember what she wanted to forget. First of all, her unauthorized surgery.

They would not have discussed about that with Ceasar, ever. But under the table, between the surgeons of the Capitol and those who would have wanted to sponsor her if they had known since the beginning of her propensity to murder, the deformity of her breast would have been widely discussed. Her body would have been on everyone's lips in private living rooms, her shame before anyone's eyes in public spaces. At two o'clock every activity would have been suspended to allow every citizen of Panem to listen to her. In District 3 they would set up the central square to celebrate and the next day the whole District would welcome her with open arms at home, including her father. Thinking about him filled her with shame, enough to sink her face into the pillow.

What would he think of her?

Ned Facilis was the best man Felix had ever known. Even in the worst of times he had always been against the idea that Felix could take Tesserae. It was her that, on her twelfth birthday, had come to the Hall of Justice and asked for extra food rations. Yet after the Reaping Ned hadn't reproached her. He simply limited himself to embrace her and whisper encouragements. Her father had believed in her and raised her to be a good person. Now that she’d killed not one but two people in that brutal way, how could he look at her?

How would Isaac look at her now that his brother was gone? What about Maya? What would she think of her? If only she had been reaped alone and without Jack, if only the odds had met the predictions now, she would have come home like a hero. Perhaps even she herself would have felt like one.

She would have returned home welcomed by a loving father, a faithful friend and the _alive_ best friend _._ He would have come to greet her with the whole family and perhaps she would feel happy. Perhaps the horrors that waited on her shoulders like black birds would not have seemed so difficult to deal with.

But the odds were not in her favor, despite all the efforts of her family. It was her mother who insisted on calling her Felix, because it means _happy._ She had imposed it as a wish for good luck in her life. Jack's mother, on the other hand, had attempted a more concrete effort, avoiding in any way that her children would take Tesserae, increasing the chances of being drawn. Both their mothers had failed.

_It's much better if I don't get up,_ Felix thought, turning over the covers _. It is much better if I stay here and wait to die._

Death, however, was not contemplated, not for her who had just won and shown everyone what a real Tribute is.

Rufus happily knocked on her door announcing that it was time for breakfast. Receiving no response, he left, but half an hour later Daesee set off on the attack with constant calls to order that interspersed more and more frequently, until she tried to force the lock on her room to solve the problem of urgent delay. Felix had been careful to lock the door the night before and let her scream without any concern. It was only when her stylist's insults were replaced by Beetee's measured knocking that Felix decided to get up and open the door.

“I did not expect you to have such a deep sleep” his mentor entered the room, already fully dressed and sat on the edge of the bed. The girl closed the door behind her and sat down next to him. She was expecting a motivational speech, instead Beetee started tinkering with his pockets looking for something. “Look what Wiress gave me.”

He handed her a small square of blue cloth that Felix did not recognize. When she took it in her hands and felt the soft consistency of the fabric, however, awareness made a breach inside her. “It's Jack's handkerchief.”

“That's right.” Beetee nodded. “They found it in your clothes and gave it to Wiress because she technically took care of Jack, even though we trained you two together. She thought you might want it. “

Felix stroked the fabric with her fingertips. The handkerchief had returned to the same spotless blue it used to be before being soaked in blood. There wasn't even a small stain left, a halo of blood or a shadow - nothing at all. Clean as if it had just arrived directly from District 8. She brought it close to her nose, although she knew that hope was in vain. Jack's smell was gone. Washed away with blood. A delicate scent of detergent spread from the cloth, but it was a generic and aseptic smell, devoid of personality. That handkerchief belonged to Jack only in the name, but by now it belonged to her, which was a simple toy to be manipulated at will and addressed against the other slaves in the system. It belonged to the living proof of what The Capitol claimed: _anyone_ can win the Hunger Games, if you are ready to lose anything. Felix had applied herself wholeheartedly, and like every time she did, she had been successful. She was a product of the Capitol as much as that handkerchief. She brought it to her chest, wishing with all of herself to be able to find a connection with the old owner. Nothing happened.

She found herself with her head resting on Beetee's shoulder and her eyes closed. If she had managed to get up to open the door and then sit next to him, it meant she would be able to face the intensive preparation session. Then she could face the interview. Then she could have collapsed on the train that would finally take her home. Going through that door was the first step that would bring her into her father's arms. She got up, opened the door and meekly followed a completely hysterical Daesee for the delay they had.

At least she had kept her promise not to dress her in red: the dress she had designed was in her favorite color, dusty blue, delicate on the skin like a cloud but much much less bulky, richly decorated with purple stones and golden chains. Her breasts were artfully fleshed with a padding that hurt only inside and a shining silk train hung from her shoulders and stretched for three meters behind her. Looking at it, she vaguely remembered the skin of the snake she had faced, and the decorative motifs of the arms and torso also resembled reptile scales. A perfectly jeweled Mutt.

Daesee had no sensitivity but a truly elegant sense of humor.

Her hair was braided with lilac flowers and Felix had a fleeting image of an alternative reality, a reality in which the girl from District 9 had won rather than the one from 3. Even Lucy might have had flowers in her hair, in fact, they would have made much more sense since she came from a rural District rather than Felix, a citizen of an industrialized District. The disgust she felt at feeling like Lucy made her head spin suddenly. She could not bear the sight of her reflection in the mirror.

“You look great!” Wiress smiled at her and pointed her way, assuring her that she and Beetee would be nearby.

“Away from the cameras” said the man. Then he raised his eyebrows as if to ask her a silent question. That dress had no pockets and Felix still had the handkerchief in her hand. She entrusted it to him and went into the studio where they would record her interview. Fortunately, there would be no audience, no eyes on her. At least not an audience she could see. She still wondered if the interview was live or if the broadcast would take place a few minutes later.

Caesar greeted her with a warm smile. “Felix! Welcome, welcome! You don't know how long I've waited for this moment!”

“I can imagine, Caesar.” That year he had chosen a bright green color that made him look like a festively decorated tree. She thought it wiser to keep her considerations to herself and sat on the soft armchair, being careful to sit down in a composed way. Posture was essential. If her body had felt more secure, perhaps she would have transmitted that security to her mind, and everything would have gone smoothly.

Caesar patted her and sat down next to her. A technician did the countdown - this made Felix think that they were live - and Caesar greeted the whole nation with a very bright smile. Felix was grateful that he was a person with whom it was easy to converse, because pretending not to be scratched by the past events required much more energy than she thought. She had to smile at the right time, but not too warmly; maintain a neutral, but not colorless tone; make witty observations, but without going too far. It went really well, until Ceasar started asking her the questions that worried her the most. Those that would shatter the facade she had put up.

“You know, we all wonder ... what the bond you shared with Jack actually was. We know you were best friends since childhood, but many wonder if there was anything else between you two… “ Caesar dropped the question, which had a clearly interrogative tone even if it hadn't been formulated completely. Felix took a few moments to weigh the answer.

There was no doubt that she loved him. That something had started growing in her was certain. But it was also true that whatever it was - infatuation, love, or affection powerful enough to confuse her - had been severed before she could understand it. She could not deny what had been: love, no matter the nuance. But she did not want and could not accuse them publicly of having prevented her from fully understanding her feelings. Otherwise there would be no one at home waiting for her. She had to be measured in words.

“I cannot deny that I love him, Caesar. He was my best friend. Tackling the Games together was real bad luck.” But that wasn't enough, she was sure of it. And in fact, Caesar pressed again. “But the way you reacted to his death, the pain you felt?”

“How would you feel if you saw your best friend torn before your eyes?” Felix had asked the question with unnatural calm, in a reasonable tone, almost the same that Beetee used to expose a thought to other interlocutors. The tone of a teacher who guides its students towards the answer. Caesar grimaced and nodded. “I am sure my heart would break.”

“Exactly.” The girl swallowed. She had to add something, otherwise they would not have been satisfied. “I am not immune to these kind reactions, to these feelings” _I wish I was, believe me._ But she kept it for herself

“I must confess you something.” Caesar took the girl's hand in his, it was something serious. Felix fought against the instinct to push him away. “The moment Jack died in your arms - a truly touching scene, I swear - I knew you were going to win.”

“Of course,” Felix spoke before thinking. “It could not have happened otherwise. At that moment I knew it too.”

“It was out of desire to avenge him, wasn't it? To let her know you wouldn't forgive such an action?”

“No, Caesar, the matter was much simpler.”

The presenter seemed vaguely dumbfounded, for the first time since he started talking. He hadn't flinched when she had told him that he had rejoiced at Melania's death even before the Bloodbath, he had even complimented the way she had made Lapis a bait for the snake and he was moved to recall the tenacity with which she had tried to keep Jack alive, but he never, even once, seemed surprised. But Caesar was a master in his profession and invited her to continue as if nothing had happened.

“See, I'm a mathematician. Numbers are my field. I come from District 3. Which District did Lucy come from? “

“From 9” the answer was ready. Caesar allowed himself to be led by her reasoning as a diligent student. Through him, all of Panem would meekly follow her on the path she was tracing, even down there in District 9, where a family cried because of her. Yet she could not prevent it, she could hardly control it. It was that metric that only she could read, that poetry that in the Arena had driven her to fight with more ferocity, that sense of humor that made no one laugh and that now had the opportunity to share. She _wanted to_ share it, which was absurd.

“I am a prime number. Do you know what prime numbers are?”

Caesar shook his head. Perhaps he knew, but Felix doubted that math was studied at that level in other districts. As usual, Caesar was helping her, and Felix really needed his support.

“They are natural numbers, a number greater than one that cannot be formed by multiplying two smaller natural numbers. Two, Three, Five are prime numbers. Nine is composite because it is the product of two numbers, Three in this case, that are both smaller than Nine. Do you know what that means?” she almost didn't wait for his nod, the desire to get rid of that thought was too big to be contained. “ There are no previous conditions necessary for _me_ to exist. Nine needs others. Three times three. She needed _me_. And I said no.”

Of her, of her clemency, of her pass. Lucy had decreed her own death the instant she killed Jack. In a way it was as if he had eliminated the exponent and left only the base, a sad and vengeful Three. Lucy had done the math without the technician, as they used to say in District 3.

All of this made perfect sense in the girl's mind. Perhaps it was the only perfectly clear thing about the entire Games experience. In the end she was truly a _prime_ number. She had won.

If Caesar had found her reasoning strange, he did not show it. He seemed incredibly excited and continued to interview her with more passion than before, going from tragic to admired until, when the time was running out, he decided to try on the emotion one last time.

“You know, before, when we talked about Jack ... I noticed that you continue to use the present, when he is no longer with us now. Why?”

The question froze the blood in her veins. Seriously?

She intercepted Beetee's gaze. The message he was sending her was clear. He understood hier hesitations, but at that moment they were of no use. He understood that she didn't want to give them that piece of herself, but he knew perfectly well - _and you know it too,_ he seemed to be saying - that if she hadn't, they wouldn't have been satisfied. And what would the consequences have been? Better to give them something to feast on, even at the cost of affecting her royal figure. Perhaps, for once only, even the game pieces had the right to rise to the level of human beings. But only for The Capitol's benefit.

“Because...” _say it. Spit it out and take that train and go home. It is cristal clear, you just have to admit it. But don't cry. Do not Cry._ The supreme admission of weakness. Because what she had said before was true: whatever she said, however hard she tried, Felix was not even remotely free of human feelings and emotions.

“Because if you truly love a person, nothing stops you from loving them. Never, let alone something like death.” But Felix knew that they would never understand it. They had never lost a mother in the factory; they had never seen their best friend go up to the Reaping stage next to them. They would have never had to live with themselves and the thought that they had not been able to die for somebody they loved.

Caesar shook her hand in a moving way and lifted it to the sky, announcing Felix Facilis, the Victor of the Sixty-ninth Hunger Games, to the world.

Finally, they pushed her to the station. Last greetings to reporters and the train left for District 3, just her, Beetee, Wiress and Rufus.

Daesee greeted her with a huge kiss and the preparatory staff held her in a warm embrace. “We can't wait for the Victory Tour to come!”

_If I get there._ The eventuality seemed rather remote, but Felix smiled and nodded. She would have thought about it later. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to throw herself on the bed. She found her old compartment on the train, got rid of the dress and stuck under the covers. Nobody bothered her until late afternoon when Rufus knocked to call her for dinner. Her stomach rumbled with hunger. Her body was recovering well: the doctors had warned her that she would have felt a growing sense of hunger as the days went by. It was a good sign and she should have eaten as much as she wanted, favoring protein and sugar. They had explained what foods they were in, so following their directions would have been easy. She chose a blue sleeveless dress and walked barefoot towards the table already occupied by the others.

The further she was from The Capitol, the more she felt her muscles relax and the fear diminish. She hadn't realized she was this scared. She was still terrified, of course. How would her father react? Would Maya have been happy to see her again, or would she have preferred Jack to come back? And Isaac ... how much would he hate her? How much would he cry in his bed, turned towards the wall not to see his brother's empty one?

Yet knowing that she was going home, being directed to a place where she could be herself again and taking refuge in the back of the shop, sheltered from the gaze of others, made her feel almost good. Almost as if things could have returned like they were before. Maybe it was thanks to the food she was eating - soft and juicy salmon, orange juice and sautéed vegetables - but she felt an optimistic movement being born inside.

They would no longer go hungry. Her father and her were safe. It was enough to behave well and they would have lived the rest of their days in peace. Her father would certainly not have closed the shop, but from now on, if one day he felt too tired to get up or got sick, he could have allowed himself the luxury of staying at home. No more Reaping for her. “What will I do now?”

Her mentors exchanged glances. It was like watching a silent conversation, Beetee and Wiress exchanged words without speaking in secret and inaccessible language. Felix had no idea how they did it, but it was not the first time she had witnessed such a phenomenon. Her father and mother also spoke like this, before she died.

Sometimes Ned Facilis would take the photo of his wife on his bedside table and peer at it intensely, as if waiting for an answer to a question he had asked her. The last time he saw his wife he asked her if they still had eggs, but she didn't remember what she had said. Could that be the question he continually asked that photo, _did we run out of eggs?_ Felix didn't know, just as at that moment she had no idea what Beetee and Wiress had just said.

“Now you're going home and ...” but Wiress was lost in the middle of the sentence, distracted by another thought.

“You take a well-deserved rest” Beetee went on. “And then ... you'll understand it one day at a time. You'll also need to find a talent, so don't relax too much.”

Felix nodded, warmed by the man's small smile, and decided to try ice cream. “I play chess. I fix things. I cook. Which do you think would be more convenient?”

“Regional cuisine? Really? Who expected it! “ Rufus patted her on the shoulder. “And what do you like to cook? Sweet or salty?”

“Actually, I do the best I can with the food I have.” Felix was quite irritated by that pat. “You hurt me.”

“Don't think about it now, Felix.” Beetee waved to her to let it go. “It is useless to think about your talent now. You won't have to show it for a long time. Take it easy. We'll be home tomorrow morning. “

_Finally._

Felix started to say goodbye but Beetee followed her to her compartment. “What is happening?”

“Nothing, don't worry.” He handed her the handkerchief he had pulled out of his pocket. “I didn't want to give it to you in front of Rufus, you know ...”

“Oh”murmured the girl. She took it gently. She would have liked to wash the blood from his hands as easily. “Thanks. “

“You were very good. You understood what you had to do and acted accordingly. I know how much it costs you.”

“I wanted them to leave me alone” Felix replied. She couldn't look him in the eye. “What’s your opinion ... will they leave me alone? We won't talk about him anymore, will we?”

Beetee sighed. “They _always_ want _to_ talk. This year you are the main attraction. Hold on. Do you know what I've learned in all these years of Games?”

Felix shook his head. “What?”

“That a low profile is always the best solution. It worked with you, with Wiress, with me ... It works with all of us in the non-Career Districts. I assure you that after a while your life will begin to flow almost normally.”

For Felix those words seemed meaningless. She just couldn't understand what his mentor meant, or what he was trying to tell her. She had to understand his bewilderment because he stroked her cheek, not before answering her question.

“Why, what happens to those from the Career Districts?”

“Much worse things, Felix. Worse things.”

What he meant remained a mystery to her. But she trusted Beetee blindly, so she nodded. There was no illusion, however: Beetee knew she hadn't understood. If he didn't give her any further explanation, it was because he felt it was not necessary to know. But she was grateful. He was protecting her. She desperately needed to feel protected.

“Goodnight, Felix.” Beetee smiled at her and started to leave, but Felix stopped and hugged him. The man hesitated for a few seconds, amazed, but embraced her in turn. The warmth of his body radiated inside her like a shy ray of spring sunshine. Perhaps even from that barren land within her something could have arisen. It was like hugging her father. “Good night.”

\------------

The station was packed with people.

Some waved handkerchiefs in greeting, others indicated the train with their finger, others had children on their shoulders to allow them to see well a wonder that would not come back anytime soon, there in District 3: a Victor returning home. And she did not only bring mere hope, returning there, at all: together with her return, every month, gifts, stocks of food, sweets, celebrations would come, all tangible material goods for everyone. First of all, the big party held by The Capitol that would take place that evening: the employees of the capital had arrived on the evening of her Victory, ready to set up every public space for the great event. Felix hardly recognized the Hall of Justice, with those hanging lights and floral wreaths climbing its facade. Some signs screamed "victory" while others roared "Pride of District 3". She could read them because the train was slowing down, which is why she was able to grasp all those details. Obviously, the cameras were already there. Two minutes at most and it would once again be live nationally. She checked her appearance in the reflection of a glass. The mild temperatures of summer had pushed her to choose white - it would have reflected the sun's rays - and cut above the knees, so similar and yet so different from the clothes she used to wear before the Games. Those came just below the knee, yet those few centimeters made all the difference. She couldn't have said why, though. She felt her own beats accelerate and the impulse to close herself in the room and look for another dress attacking her. That dress showed too much of her collarbones, her arms, her legs, how had it occurred to her to wear it? Even those cream-colored shoes, the least affected that she had found, seemed so terribly out of place. A schoolgirl just out of school, that's what she looked like. Fortunately, the austere braid that held her hair lessened the effect, but the girl cursed herself for making such a choice.

It was all too easy to imagine bloodstains opening up on the side and expanding to wear out the tissue.

Her hand ran to the pocket on her side, where the handkerchief lay. The train stopped and Felix placed non-existent strands of hair behind her ears. Wiress' hand on her back gave her courage and when the door opened and the roar of the crowd hit her, she managed to smile, automatically raising a hand, greeting. If she continued to smil, she would have had a facial paralysis. That concession was all for the benefit of the Capitol.

When her eyes met her father's, however, she risked shattering like a mirror. Ned Facilis wrapped her in an embrace and Felix almost bursted into tears there in front of everyone on national TV. She wrapped her arms around his back - she could swear she was holding on to the fabric of his jacket for fear of losing him- and jumped when someone stroked her shoulder. She jerked away, but it was only Maya. She was paler than usual, her eyes red with tears and two deep purple dark circles. But she was smiling at her with open arms. “So, won't you hug me?”

She was too dumbfounded to answer her and fortunately there was no need. Maya hugged her momentarily and Felix could hear her laughter shake her chest that trembled against hers. Disgusted by the idea that Maya might realize the artifice in her breasts, Felix hastened to push her away. If Maya was hurt by her gesture, she didn't show it. Felix felt her cheeks flare with shame and looked down, but her best friend kissed her on the cheek and raised her hand to the sky, echoing the gesture of Caesar at the end of her last interview. This time, however, Felix shook the other girl's hand and continued to incite her District who was screaming her name in ecstasy. Claudius and Caesar were surely commenting on her return home and certainly would not have questioned the shortage of friends and relatives, since his father and Maya were practically the only loved ones she had. Maya's parents had also come to greet her, which filled her with gratitude and affection, yet her heart was beating wildly, just like when she risked dying strangled. Did she have an air bubble in her heart that grew dramatically - an aneurysm? A heart attack? A stroke? - because something was missing, someone was missing. Her best friend was not there because he was lying beneath the freshly turned earth of the cemetery. His brother hadn't come to say goodbye, even if he was Felix's friend. The girl didn't blame him.

Neither the shining sun nor the cheering shouts of the people warmed her. Felix was cold and deaf. Just like when she was about to die, the sounds were muffled. Maya said something to her, but Felix didn't answer. She just watched her, thrilled. A flash of understanding passed into her friend's eyes, who looked at a spot behind her for help. The large, warm hand on or father patted her shoulder, instantly bringing it back there with them. The power of the screams was such that it startled her. Did they cry for joy or pain?

“We have to go there to the town hall.” Her father pointed to the strangely decorated building at the end of the avenue. People moved as they passed, moving away like two magnets of equal charge. Or maybe it was Felix making her way like a trickle of water in the ground? Who started who? How did it work?

“Where's Beetee?” she looked for him in the crowd. “I do not see him!”

“It's a little behind us, don't worry.”

“He'll catch up with us! “ Maya tugged on her slightly. Felix hadn't even noticed she was leading her. “You know I'm allowed to sit at the table with you because they interviewed me when you came in the last eight? Are you happy?”

Felix nodded and let herself be carried meekly. Her best friend paved the way for her, and her father was in the rear. Those people weren’t screaming at her, those people were _celebrating_ her. She was safe.

In the town square, which only a few weeks before it seemed to her cold and inhospitable, as cold as a winter evening, was now richly set with tables, the dishes ready to be served as soon as the party had begun. The bouquets of flowers and laurel that protruded from the tables and from the stage spread a sweet scent in the air, a little heavy but caressing. It made her dizzy, but it was certainly due to a sum of factors. The heat, the cacophony in her ears, Maya's hand, sweaty, in hers. That empty button that dragged behind.

The mayor greeted her with all the honors reserved for a winner. He was standing on the Reaping stage: a long table decorated with flowers was just waiting for the diners to sit down to kick off the party that would continue until late at night. It was shielded from the sun by a large tarpaulin which cast a pleasant shadow.

Beetee, Wiress and the only other winner, Mac, applauded with the rest of the District, gathered under the stage. Felix spotted Capitol City jugglers and singers in the crowd, almost more joyful than her own people.

_I was definitely wrong to wear this dress._

“Do you want to be the one to kick off the celebrations?” the mayor asked, pointing at the microphone. This was the point where she had waited, petrified, for the odds that had decided not to be in her favor. She hadn't even had time to hope for _not Jack, not Jack,_ before Rufus had called the younger of the Finnigan brothers.

“Oh no.” said the girl, looking away. She could almost see Jack's ghost go up the stairs, stand right next to her and give her a look full of terror. “Please, can you do it?”

The mayor then indicated her place - at the head of the table - and announced, full of pride, the beginning of the party “In honor of the greatest pride of District 3!”

“A little pretentious, don't you think?” Maya murmured with a smile. Felix found herself chuckling. “You are right. I mean, Beetee's trap was much more ingenious.”

“In my opinion, the mayor has wagered a lot of money” said Maya. “And he raised a nice nest egg thanks to you .”

“Don't say that, Maya! Felix is truly the District's greatest pride! “ Her father, who had taken his seat on her left, laughed. “She is mine too.” He stroked her hand with a tenderness that made her eyes moisten. He had no idea how much those words meant to her.

When the party ended, they were escorted to their home. Interior decorators who came directly from Capitol City had helped his father transport their few belongings from the old house to the brand-new home that Felix had so honestly earned.

One last photo on the door hugged to his father and they finally closed the door behind them, excluding the world.

The new house was beautiful, but foreign. In the night, it was illuminated only by the indirect light of the streetlamps along the avenue of the Victor’s Village. She imagined the bedrooms were on the upper floor. She turned on the groping light and went up the stairs cautiously, checking first one end of the corridor, then the other. That unnatural silence was deafening. Blame on the wonderful carpet that muffled every sound, even the heavy step of his father. He watched her with a wrinkle of concern between his eyes. How extraneous she must have seemed.

“I'm exhausted” Felix murmured. She hadn't done much, actually. She had conversed with everyone at the table and had rejoiced to see her people celebrate, fill their bellies and have fun forgetting the curfew, the Peacemakers, even the factory shifts the next day. All the families in District 3 would enjoy her victory, except one, whose absence dug a hole in her heart. The hand ran to the handkerchief in the pocket. She was at home now, but she knew nothing of the house in that building which only had a fireplace downstairs. She realized then that she would not fall asleep alone in the vastness of her bed. Because her bed would be huge and lined with fine silk sheets. And _empty_.

“Dad...”

Her father, who had given her goodnight, turned alarmed by the tone of her voice.

”Tell me.”

“Just for tonight ... can I sleep in bed with you? Like when I was little?”

Ned broke into a smile and wrapped her in the sweetest embrace she had ever received. “My darling, of course. You don't know how much I missed you. “

He stroked her hair and cheeks, looked at her with shiny eyes and then melted into tears. He tried not to show up, but he couldn't stop those sobs. Felix knew that feeling all too well, yet she didn't even feel a tear scratching her cheeks. Her father clung to her with the strength of a castaway who finds a float to rely on and let himself be embraced, caressed and reassured by her. “I missed you so much, I was so afraid ...”

“Me too.” The girl led him to any room in the house and made him lay down on the covers. Then she lay down beside him and curled up on his chest, wrapped in his arm. The sobs had diminished in intensity and now she was just trembling, but Felix knew that the worst had passed. Those were tears of joy and now she was holding her with the same care as when she was little, the same intensity as when she left.

That night, just for that night, Felix slept soundly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find us on tumblr @superkattivehblr


	4. Alive for Death, Dead for Life

The stone corridor was infinite.

It wasn't true, she knew: her perceptions were lying. But something was following her in the dark. In the adjacent corridors, scaly and white beings crawled on the floor. Their hisses climbed the walls and usurped inside her. There was no one to keep her company.

Felix looked around. “ _Is anyone there? Anyone hear me?”_

But of course, there was no one, if not that dark presence that hunted her. She could feel its breath on her neck. It raised her skin.

She forced herself to move ahead.

It was so dark ... the walls were black instead of blue and green, and there were no minerals to illuminate the street. Yet she knew that if she turned around, she would completely lose the use of sight. The darkness was total behind her. At least she could distinguish the outlines of what she had before him. _If I look back, I'm lost._ Better to proceed aimlessly but undeterred.

Stairs appeared before her.

She supposed she had to go up. She immediately counted the steps. _One, seven, five, twenty, one hundred and four ..._ panic assailed her.

She couldn't count! The order was all wrong! The more she tried to concentrate, the more difficult it was to count, the more anxiety grew, the faster she went up the stairs. _Nine, three, nine, three, nine THREE_ -

She stumbled on the step and fell on her face and woke up trembling and sweaty and blind in her bed.

She had no air to scream or courage to do it. The blindness of her tears terrified her too much. She quickly dried her eyes and finally regained her sight, but what she saw froze the blood in her veins.

_She_ was there. In the corner of her room, near the door, too far away for the moon to enlighten her yet still shining thanks to its timid rays.

Her face was _always_ illuminated by the moon. So that she could see the crescents of her nails on her neck and the purple marks on her throat, so that she would be exposed to her red and bloodshot eyes, so that Lucy would skin her throat with the mere force of her gaze.

Her psyche knew how to play jokes on her.

She tried to scream, in vain. Her voice was missing. And _she_ came up with those black eyes like bottomless pits that stared at her and nailed her to bed and killed her ...

When Felix really woke up, she was in tears.

Like every day since her return home. She jumped up and checked the cursed corner of her room. Empty.

_She's dead,_ a voice said in her head. _She cannot harm you, no more._

“You better remember it…” she murmured to no one in particular. Judging by the height of the sun in the sky, it was very late. Early afternoon. The smell of fried food coming from the kitchen confirmed her hypothesis. She vaguely wondered what her father was preparing, but as her stomach closed at the thought of having to eat, she gave up guessing.

She crawled into the shower and let the water wash away all the tears. The water gave her strength, reminded her that she _hated_ Lucy, that she was alive at her expense and that she had no reason to be terrified.

The hatred that supported her, however, became more fragile every day. At night she was a murderer tormented by her victim, during the day she was just a little girl frightened by the dark.

She remained under the hot jet and sprinkled herself with all kinds of soap within her reach. She rubbed her hands well, her hands were important, and then she passed her neck, torso, legs, the whole body for two, three times. Now she could count well. She was alive for the eighty-second day in a row.

Once outside she could not help looking in the mirror. She was no longer so irreparably thin as to offend the aesthetic: her father had taken care to make her follow scrupulously the diet that the doctors had prescribed her. The ribs were no longer protruding and for the first time since she had memory her belly had taken on a soft curve, as had her hips. The efforts of the doctors and Gamemakers were bearing fruit: she was no longer straight as a pencil nor thin as a twig. She was healthy and full.

Her hands instantly ran to her breasts. Even on the front, everything proceeded as planned. Her figure was perfectly harmonious, both frontally and in profile. That body did not belong to her and the clothes she owned made her feel naked.

She crawled into the bedroom and opened one of the closets. She certainly could not go around in underwear. But the hanging clothes were not hers, not anymore. The gnarled-kneed girl who wore them had died underground. Now, there she was, the Victor, who certainly could not wear the clothes of a corpse.

She took a brown cotton suit, looked at it and threw it on the ground. She took another, dusty gray, and threw that too. She tried on a shirt, but it did not close properly because of the breasts. It ended up in the pile. Before, she had not owned many clothes, but as she went through them and realized their inadequacy, they seemed an infinite number. Finally, her hands touched the soft fabric of the blue skirt she had worn on the day of the Reaping, and, beside it, the dark blouse that had been her mother's. She could not throw it away with her other clothes, so she folded it and hid it in a drawer, where she kept Jack's handkerchief. At that sight the hands were seized with an uncontrollable itch and it was of no use to rub them between themselves or on the thighs: she had to go to the bathroom again, soap them well and rinse desperately, until even the last drop of blood slipped into the sink, underground, away from her.

Back in her room, the sight of that little bunch of clothes was unbearable. She started from the skirt: she picked it up from the edges and tore it apart. Then, the brown dress. She observed it carefully, with those buttons on its chest, the short sleeves, its length just under the knees. It was the dress of a schoolgirl who always raised her hand and was never unprepared. She tore that too and a sob escaped her lips. The grey dress was identical to the brown one, except for the buttons: instead of them there was a ribbon that Felix had _hated._ That’s why she avoided to wear it as much as she could. She still hated it. Ended up in pieces, just like the rest of the clothes. Those white wool stockings, so prudish and heavy and unfitting in that burning August – what were they doing among the summer clothes?- Thrown away as well.

The smock she used to wear while working, to avoid getting dirty; her shirts, so old that it was colorless; her trousers that now would be too tight even on the calves – everything thrown away. Everything in pieces. It was so easy to destroy them, so easy to erase every trace of the little girl she had been, to deny her very existence and cast away her ghost, why hadn’t she done that before?

Her father found her still tearing apart her clothes, breathless.

“I’ve got nothing to wear” Felix said trying to explain herself. “Nothing that fits me.”

“Felix” her father swallowed. He tried not to look at her and his eyes wandered everywhere in the room, except on her. The girl wondered why, the she realized she was almost naked, but she wasn’t embarrassed by her father seeing her.

When her father asked her why’d she do something like that, she felt shame burn her cheeks and buried her face in her knees, excluding herself from the world. She had told him why; those clothes weren’t hers. Her father stayed near the door, uncertain, then climbed down the stairs.

She stayed like that for a very long time, until a kind hand shook her shoulder. “Ehy… you’re totally freaking out, aren’t you?”

Felix raised her eyes and met Maya’s. Blue, stunning, but they hurt her so much. They were asking her uncomfortable questions, so she closed her own eyes not to answer. _What happened? Why are you behaving like that? Are you all right?_

Obviously not, and it was in plain sight. Felix felt like suffocating, she just wanted to go back to sleep under the sheets so as not to talk to anyone; but she didn’t want to be alone, not alone…

“Come with me” Maya took her arm-in-arm and made her sit on her bed, the brushed her hair gently, until that scraggly mass had a clean appearance. She fixed her messy locks and then put on her a dress that wasn’t hers. She fastened her shoes and gave her a little hat. To Felix’s raised eyebrow Maya answered that all those clothes belonged to her. “You can’t go out naked for sure.”

“Go out? Why?” Felix asked, frightened.

“Because you just tore apart all your clothes, you silly girl” Maya secured the last button of the green dress and smiled at her. “You have to buy a new wardrobe.”

Felix’s father waited downstairs, sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands. Seeing him so blue hurt her, enough to stop her on the stairs. Maya looked at her, curious, and Felix shook her head. “I don’t want to. I can’t.”

“Yes, you can” Maya chanted, in the tone of someone in command knowing that things will go as programmed. “It’s very simple. We go downstairs, go out together, have a nice walk to the shops in the square. There you’ll choose all clothes and shoes you wish, then we’ll come back home.”

“Right away?”

“As soon as we’re done. I promise.”

Felix nodded, then shyly reached out to her friend. Maya held her right away, and if that boost of affection surprised her, she didn’t show it. Felix held on tight to her, took a heavy breath, and only after another reassurance she said she was ready. They went out together under the burning August sun.

Now that she lived in the Victor’s Village summer had another taste. Trees and plants grew lushly in gardens and alleys. Beetee once told her that he had asked for those particular species – the yellow flowers trees and the white seedling surrounding their home – because they repelled flies, the summer plague of the District. During summer Felix always hoped for a downpour that could cast away every trace of smog, insects and heath that made almost impossible to work. School ended during summer, but her job at the shop never stopped. It was incredibly frustrating to feel her sweat slip in her eyes, especially while working on small pieces.

In winter, instead, snow blocked every passage and workers had to shovel it away to go to work, especially those who – just like her – came from the farthest and poorest areas of the District. District 3 was one of the most densely populated and extended of Panem, having five active factories filled with exploited workers. Felix was fairly sure that her District was the only one in Panem to have a short tramline allowing workers to go to work on time. Once it was way more extended: you could see in all the District the ruins of old stops now uncovered, metal wires running in the streets – but the Dark Days had come, and those were the outcomes. Five trams, older than eighty years, falling into pieces and risking every day to go off the rails.

The trams passed all year round at specific times, and if you lost it because you lived away from the factories and arrived at work late… The Peacekeepers were more than dedicated to have order and discipline followed, no matter the inconvenience.

The Peacekeepers guarding the Victor’s Village did not blink when they passed, nor did the others patrolling the strategic areas of the District: the principle square, the market, tram stops and even the schools. Felix vaguely wondered if the curfew had changed or stayed the same. Last time she cared about this detail was in spring, when she found herself all alone at home and waited for her father all night, in vain. Next day he came home cold because he stayed all night in his shop. He hadn’t realized that it was so late and couldn’t come home. Had they found him in the streets when the curfew was over, they would have arrested him or worst. At the time, she had been grateful that he didn’t get sick, because they couldn’t afford even the cheapest of the medicines.

“It’s a fanfare, if you ask my opinion” Maya said.

Felix frowned, back in a present where she could afford the most expensive of medicals. “What?”

“That poster” and pointed a wall a bit away from them. It was the red bricks market wall, a huge rectangular structure where the merchants of the District elbowed to expose their goods. There, a huge poster looked out on the most trafficked street of the District. It was her victory poster. Felix and her heavily photoshopped breasts, fixed the audience with an appealing expression: she didn’t smile, sitting as sinuous as a mermaid in a powder pink dress on a green-bottle background. Near her face, the Seventy-Ninth Hunger Games logo.

“They chose this photo, in the end” Felix mumbled a little distracted. “I took so many in the Capitol. You can’t even see my name.”

“Because they don’t care” Maya answered icily. “To them you’re a Victor, not a person.”

“Girls…” her father warned them. A group of Peacekeepers wandered nearby. “Remember that we’re here to pass a lovely Sunday afternoon with our family. Why don’t we talk about something else?”

“Of course! So, Felix, where do you want to start?”

“I wouldn’t know” the girl answered. “From the closest shop, I think.”

Maya brought her to a shop that Felix knew but where she never got in. The showcase was well displayed, and the owner of the shop seemed more than happy to have the Victor of the District as a client. Maya had the time of her life bossing her around, pointing to fabrics, choosing models, matching shoes to clothes, finding accessories and changing her mind last minute. Felix wore everything she passed her, simply shaking her head or nodding to let her know whether she liked the items or not and encouraged her father to buy new clothes. When Maya buttoned a dungaree to her side, she told her to buy what she wanted. “Choose something, whatever you want and take it. It’s a present.”

“Thank you!” Maya hugged her and then rushed to a translucid fabric that seemed to come from the wildest of Daesee’s dreams. Felix rubbed her hands on her naked thighs – the dungaree was quite short, more beautiful than practical, totally in Maya’s style – and wandered stealthily in the shop. She closed herself in the only changing room. The mirror reflected an image of herself that was more bearable to look at. She observed the golden glasses of the right diopter, the pastel blue of the dungaree and the sea blue of the shirt underneath and thought that they could work. Those clothes weren’t really _hers,_ but surely, they weren’t _theirs._ She had to cling on that. The itching hands were unbearable at that point, so she hid them in her pockets and rushed out of the changing closet. Talking wasn’t necessary to let them know she had had enough for that day and it was time to come home.

At the end of the day the happiest person was the owner of the shop.

“Now we have to find new shoes and we’re done.”

“No” Felix opposed firmly. “Now we are going home.”

“We either buy them now, or I’m coming home tomorrow and go shopping with you all day long. You choose.”

So, she chose her shoes without any particular interest and finally got them to bring her back home. Maya rushed away because pf the curfew and promised to call her as soon as she got home. Felix helped her father with the bags and boxes and left them in the living room as soon as she stepped a foot inside. Her father asked her what she wanted for dinner and she answered she didn’t care. “Whatever.”

Every time he asked her what she wanted to eat she answered that way, then when it was dinner time what he had prepared didn’t satisfy her, so she either didn’t eat or prepared something for herself.

She dragged herself on the stairs and threw herself on her bed. She opened that the bed would open and suck her in, she hoped to choke wrapped by feathers as soft as a cloud, like in her childhood nightmares. The ringing phone – to which she didn’t answer – warned her that Maya had successfully come home. A part of her realized to be a horrible friend: she never visited her, never phoned her, never invited her at her home nor proposed her to go for a walk. It annoyed her when Maya came to see her and keep her company during the day, but when she left the abyss of loneliness crushed her chest and Felix couldn’t find a way to ask her to stay. Maya was suffering the loss of two friends, instead of one. The problem was that Felix was in a remote and dark place, completely isolated. The buzz in her hears was steady. Impossible to reach her.

Her father calling her for dinner brought her back to reality. Felix turned her head and looked at the door. She had to open it, check on the right and on the left, walk the corridor to the stairs, go downstairs carefully, inspect the area and then sit at the table. _Too much._

But her father called her again and Felix made herself do all those things, until she fell on the chair in front of him. In her plate, morsels of meat and vegetables that Felix could have cooked better. She did not want them. She started to nibble some squared forms of bread trying to follow her father’s voice in what he was saying. When she could tune on him, she wished to come back to the white noise of her loneliness.

“You are somewhere else.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she remained quiet. Obviously her father would rather have her say something, anything at all, but that was the funny thing about the new person she had become. The old self had always been an inept regarding human relationships, even with her best friends, but she had never ever had problems with her father. Felix communicated with Ned with a simple nod of her head, a look, a smile that she had never dedicated to anyone else. The Victor, instead, was buried alive in a coffin of distress and silence that not even her father could reach.

“Felix, I know you aren’t fine. I can’t even imagine what you’re feeling. But I want to try and understand… If you’ll allow me.”

Felix swallowed. They both agreed that he could not even imagine her feelings. Her father looked at her with begging eyes that moved her to compassion, so much to make her something vaguely similar to an apology. “It’s hard to explain.”

“I know, but if you don’t talk about it… I am here for you, and you’re somewhere and I can’t reach you!” Ned’s eyes were watering and he was close to crying. She was close as well, but her eyes stayed as dried as stone. Maybe her heart had stopped beating. She couldn’t explain in any other way the hole in her chest.

It had happened during the passing of the years that some guys made fun of her. They told he she couldn’t love, that she was only good at math and to tinker with broken things. That she actually had no talent at all and wasn’t any different from the machines in the factory. That that was the place where she would end up, alone, without anyone loving her. Jack, Maya, even Isaac had melted her heart of ice. Those mean comments were false: she loved them. She loved her father and her mother, even if she was gone, and loved her friends. But she had to allow them a grain of truth. If their words did not harm her, if she answered to fire with fire, if she was on her way not caring about anyone but those five people, there had to be a splinter of ice crystalized in her heart. 

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes” Felix abandoned the bread, now definitely unhungry. “I am not deaf.”

“I know, honey, I know” Ned came closer and took his daughter’s hand in his. Felix didn’t retreat from that touch but gained no relief from it. Once she had considered the words _ice-hearted_ fitting for herself. A heart of ice can always melt, and hers had a hot nucleus warmed by her dear ones. It is another kind of heart that cannot be trusted.

“It’s just… you’re always at Beetee’s or in your room, I am here, I want you to know the I am here _for you_ , for my daughter, that I haven’t slept for all your Games, that I prayed for you to come back home, that whatever you believe I might think… I love you, Felix, even if you don’t believe that-”

“Are you aware of the way I won?”

Ned blinked. It wasn’t a hard question, but Felix repeated it anyway, her voice so monotone to seem recorded. “Are you aware of the way I won? Of what I’ve done?”

Ned shook his head. “You won. That’s all that matters.”

“You don’t understand, I murdered her.”

Her father exploded: “That’s how you win the Hunger Games!”

“What did I win?” Felix freed her hand from her father’s. “What did I win, uh? I don’t want to get up in the morning. I can’t help but whine every night. I can’t even look in the eyes my friend.”

“You came home” by now Ned Facilis was crying. Why were always the others the ones who cried when _she_ was suffering? “Isn’t this enough as a victory?”

_“I did not want to win.”_

Finally, she said it. Finally, she was spitting out the truth. When she started, she couldn’t stop. “I wanted to murder her. _Wanted to._ I was _so_ happy when she died. _So happy._ By then, I wanted to die as well.”

Her father sighed. “Felix…”

“I won because I was unlucky, daddy. I was the only one left.”

“I know that Jack’s death shocked you, but now you’re here, you’re alive, don’t-”

“Do not tell me what to feel.” Felix stood up. “Don’t do that. You have no _idea_ of what I’ve been through, of what I’ve done… You don’t know.”

“I was there, Felix! I saw you!” Her father followed her and stepped between her and the stairs. “Don’t you dare go to your room! I want to understand, I want to talk to you!”

Felix felt like a child to whom chocolate was denied. “What do you want me to say? I don’t know! I don’t know how to tell you what I feel nor what you want to hear!”

“I don’t want to hear anything” her father seemed truly offended by those words. His tone lowered; it didn’t occur to her last time she heard him speak like that. “I just want to talk with my child, like we used to. I want her to know that I love her, I don’t care what she had to do to come home. _I want you back._ ”

_Oh, dad…_ a sigh shook her. How could he still love her after what she had done? After that show, after revealing her true nature? Felix was a murderer; she could accept that. Could she accept that her father accepted that as well?

“I am not who I used to be, dad. That girl died in the Arena. Now there’s just me.”

She fell to the ground like a doll whose wires were cut. The knowledge of that truth was as heavy as a rock. Her father run to hug her, to wrap her with his strong arms and callous hands, his cheeks a bit abrasive for the unshaved beard. Felix hold on him. “There’s just me. Just me. I … I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe…”

“Inhale and exhale, honey. In and out, I’ll help you. One, two. One, two.”

Felix did as she was told, inhaling and exhaling. That splinter of ice made her heart bleed profusely. In her head echoed a word that she would have never expected to say in such a situation. _Sorry, sorry, sorry._

She had no idea to whom she was talking to. To her father? To Jack? To Maya? Or to herself? She didn’t have the answer to those questions, but she was perfectly aware of _why_ she was saying that.

_Sorry,_ her mind murmured, while her father carried her – no without a bit of an effort – and brought her to her room. Felix hated those moments of sanity, because all the white noise disappeared and there was only her crystal-clear voice left, lining up all the data, never stopping. Sometimes her mind was so detached from her body that it didn’t realize the pain it inflicted to herself.

_Sorry_ , she said to herself, while she let him lay her on her bed. _Sorry if I’m so unreliable. Sorry if everything slips away and I don’t want to get up. Sorry if I don’t understand my heart._

But that was a lie, she was aware of that. She knew perfectly her heart. It was empty, of course, but not because there was nothing in her chest. There, there was the kind of heart that cannot be trusted, barren and unbending.

_Sorry,_ she kept saying, not realizing she was talking out loud. _Sorry if my heart can’t melt, not anymore._

“Why are you apologizing, honey? You don’t have to apologize.”

Felix shook her head. She wanted to believe him, she really did, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t lie to her father. He asked again why was she apologizing. Ned wouldn’t understand her answer, but Felix couldn’t be clearer than that. It didn’t exist a better combination of words that could express all that she had become, all that she felt in that moment, all that her life would be from there on.

“Because my heart’s of stone.”

That night, when she fell from the stairs and Lucy was right there waiting for her, she couldn’t help but scream. Not because she was skinning her. Because she was _afraid._ She was terrified.

Next morning, under the shower, eighty-three days after the end of the Games, she didn’t feel any more resentment to give her the strength to get out of the bathroom and face the day. She had run out of energy to hate and had nothing left.

Water run down her back. Minutes passed. She stayed under the shower contemplating the emptiness in front of her. She had never thought possible to regret her old life. Her father knocked to let her out. She agreed just because she wanted him to shut up. But he asked nothing of her. He simply accompanied her to bed and brought her some food. Felix had no idea whether it was lunch or dinner. She ate. She lay on her bed. She didn’t die.

This loop repeated itself for another ninety-one days. Sometimes there were some variations, like Maya’s visits, or her father bringing her with him at the shop, once they even made her go shopping for the upcoming winter season. Sometimes she found herself at Beetee’s, on her mentor’s sofa, listening to him and Wiress talk. 

She had no idea of who brought her there, and it didn’t displease her, but by then she didn’t utter any word, not even when they talked directly to her. Once they even put in her hand a screwdriver and a broken radio, but Felix stared at them not knowing what to do. The damage at the radio was so ridiculous that even a child could repair it. Why to give it to her, it was a mystery.

During the passing of months, she found herself to often wander with imagination, an instrument she thought she didn’t possess. A part of her thought that was because before she didn’t have enough time to waste, while now she had all the time of the world. Her life unwrapped in front of her like a carpet, an infinite sequence of same days following one another, sometimes sunny, sometimes rainy, but always and hopelessly grey, as grey and as hard as iron.

The crispy and golden autumn passed, and the stinging, needle-like winter came. Snow twirled slowly over the window in her bedroom, in the same way an October leaf would fall. The symmetry of nature charmed her. In spring, pollen would scatter in the cool and dirty air, and summer storms would clear the streets. She couldn’t tell whether the accuracy of her previsions comforted her or not, but she found herself uncaring about that. What charmed her was the idea of walking barefoot in the candid snow and feel the frost expand, little by little, in her; until a finger of ice touched her rotten heart and she collapsed to the ground, dead.

There her newly discovered imagination played a fundamental role: she wandered into the woods, when she imagined dying. She walked on snow leaving tracks that then, mysteriously, disappeared. There were no woods in District 3. No wooden paths shrinking into a white grave. There was only the snow soiled by the smoke of the factories.

The ninety-second evening, she was sitting on a sofa and Beetee on the chair. In the middle, on the coffee-table generously included with the house, a heavy chessboard. Felix hated that the blacks were colored red. Beetee moved first. “Victory Tour, tomorrow.”

“I’m perfectly aware of that.” Felix refused to touch her pieces. Suddenly she felt a stitch across her back and sat correctly for the first time in months.

“We’re leaving at eleven o’clock, but Rufus, Daesee, Attica, Sulpicia and Nathan will be here earlier to prepare you” her mentor explained, his voice calm and reasonable. “What do you think you need to do?”

_What do you think you have to do?_

Always that question, always that input that made her set-in motion her brains. It had been a lifesaver in those moments before her interview, but now it was just a bother. “I think I have to find a talent” she admitted. “Since you and Wiress are already inventors it’s useless to bet on my technic abilities. Let’s say I like cooking.”

“Perfect” Beetee smiled to her once more, waiting for her move. Felix couldn’t bear it. In her head that question still echoed. She could not attend her Tour in those conditions: she feared the consequences that her family could face. She must stay on track and follow the rules. But to be _present_ all the time?

“I am not going to give any speech” the mere thought made her breath faster. She couldn’t even go head-on in District 9. District 1 could be bearable, but down there, where _everyone_ hated her...

“It won’t be necessary” her mentor shook his head. “Rufus will take care of that. You just have to remember who you are in the eyes of the Capitol and behave accordingly.”

In eyes of the Capitol she was a great murderer deserving of every praise, but Felix was sure that Beetee didn’t mean that she should kill anyone displeasing her. “How could you bear it? How did you do then?”

“Well… I killed the Career’s pack all at once” Beetee faked a smile that died right away. “I won because I kept a low profile… and because nobody thought to exploit water conduction.” Felix couldn’t help but offer a nod of respect, but she didn’t ask that and Beetee knew. “I just read my speech on the card, at the time I had an escort whose name was Thandie. Then I just stared somewhere in the crowd and thought about my family. That’s how I survived in those Districts where everyone hated me.”

“Perfect” she doubted to be able to evoke any reassuring thought in District 9 and 1, but she could manage to isolated herself enough not to seems absent and, at the same time, protect herself from all the hate she would get.

The arrival of her staff was traumatic. She had more or less warned her father about their enthusiasm, but her words couldn’t match reality. He offered them coffee, chocolate, orange juice, whatever they wanted, and they would have been happy to accept, but Daesee put the screws to everyone, including Felix.

“Twelve Districts in twelve days and my Victor has to be _perfect!”_

And she was. Every day she displayed a new dress: sometimes of dubious taste, often pretty ones. The first three days everything went fine. Felix couldn’t help but notice her own puppy dog face, even if she was on stage the bare necessary: a swift wave with her hand, a nod after the speech, then right back in the hall of justice, where parties and dinners were held in her honor – but none of them wanted to truly celebrate her.

Especially in District 9.

It didn’t snow down there. There were no hats, scarfs or coats to hide their vicious hate, there was nothing to protect Felix from those murderous looks. She could have died a thousand times, once for every person looking at her. She couldn’t avoid to look at the stage at her left, where Lucy’s beautiful face looked at her as well. She was dead, of course, but she was present. Her mother, her father, a boy in age for the reaping and a little girl stood there. A dark-haired boy stood a bit away from them, his hands clenched int fists. His eyes stabbed her for just one second, but it was enough. Felix retired in the hall of justice barely breathing. She could blame the corset in front of Rufus – who screamed to Daeesee to loosen it – but Beetee knew perfectly why. An entire family gathered there just for her and just for her that very family was crippled. Had things gone differently – just for a second, a little gesture – on that day District 9 wouldn’t have had any visit: it would’ve been skipped directly to District 8, that Felix would visit the following day. That family would have been rich and safe from hunger. She couldn’t really feel remorse or guilt. She just didn’t want to be hated.

The only positive note of the Tour was the chance to see a glimpse of sea. Felix had never seen such a juxtaposition of colors, so bright. Horizon cut exactly in half sky and sea. The orange mantle of the sky burned her eyes, so much that looking down, that night blue as impetuous as her soul, left her speechless. The movement of the waves was hypnotic.

“It’s called golden hour” said a smiling Finnick Odair. Of all the Victors she had met, he was her favorite. Too cocky, but despite the appearance, she could have a meaningful conversation with him, beyond the empty words she exchanged with the other Victors. “If a tribute of yours should win, you could see it again.”

“Not in a while” Felix answered. “No District, which isn’t Career, wins the Games twice in a row. Mines are already sentenced to death.”

“Unluckily I believe you’re right” the boy’s smirk seemed corrupted by a sad note that disappeared as soon as she noticed it. “For us the game is on. Maybe the odds will be in our favor this year.”

_The odds are never in our favor._ This, she dared not to say, but it wasn’t necessary. She suspected that Finnick thought that as well.

At the end, the day in District 1 was better than she thought, the dinner in the Capitol as awful as her Victory’s dinner and finally she came back to the snow in District 3.

It pleased her that all the District would participate at the glorious feast generously offered by the Capitol, but the homecoming remined her that it wouldn’t last long. Half a year had passed, meaning that her anxiety would only grow with the approaching of the following Games. She already looked for the girls and boys she’d have to mentor. Nobody thought about that, too involved with the dancing and the feast.

Maya, a fake smile on her lips, danced with a boy way more enthusiastic than her. Her father happily chatted with miss Chastain not too far and sometimes looked suspiciously at her – he didn’t want to lose sight of her – while Felix gravitated around her mentors, feeling out of place so well-groomed in that dress that stood out among the scarfs and coats of the others like a lighthouse in the dark. Daesee was not an equilibrated person, Felix knew that, but still couldn’t explain the extremes that reflected in her art. Some clothes were absolutely awful, of dubious taste, other so wonderful to catch her breath, just like the one she was wearing at the moment: a voluminous white fur on the neckline and a ultra-long blue train falling down her shoulders. She had to pay attention to it. She was fixing it in order to put it out of the trajectory of the dancing crowd when a pair of foot entered her visual range. The girl’s grey eyes climbed up leather shoes, a dark coat, the huge scarf that couldn’t obfuscate the sparkle of those eyes.

Felix couldn’t help but compare those eyes to sapphires, although that boring comparison left her unsatisfied. Not because it was unfitting, but because she could do better. Anyway, she felt her lungs shrink and the hand clung on the goblet she was holding. Isaac looked in her eyes, his hands in the pockets, biting the lower lip. He seemed as undecisive whether to talk to her as much as she was determined to run away. But she didn’t move. She bares his even when she had to impose herself to inhale and exhale. Isaac neared immediately, his hand on her forearms, his eyes worried. “Are you all right?”

Felix freed herself of his touch immediately – she didn’t miss his hurt gaze – and turned her back on him, frenetically looking for her father in the crowd. She couldn’t see him anymore and couldn’t see Beetee as well. The glass fell from her hand and shattered in a million pieces and the beverage in it stained the blue edge of the dress.

“Are you hurt?” Isaac looked quickly at her hands but did not try to touch her again. “Are you hurt somewhere?”

“No…” Felix answered, seeing her hands red of the blood of Jack. “Leave… leave me alone.” She rubbed her hands on the soft velvet of the dress – obviously leaving no marks – and advanced in the crowd like a drunk woman, her eyes wide and the perception of her body more and more disconnected from reality. She stepped right in the dance floor, exchanging weird looks with the pirouetting, laughing people; they looked confused at her but Felix didn’t care until she stepped inside the Hall of Justice, safe from everyone’s eyes but especially Isaac’s. Or so she thought.

He stood right in front of her, in his arms the curled train. _That’s why they looked at me like that,_ Felix thought, _that’s why no one dragged me or stepped on it._

Seized by a sudden feel of shame, he let the train go and tried to spread the folds. “Sorry, I didn’t want you to get hurt, I didn’t want to ruin your dress…”

Felix could barely believe his words. They hadn’t seen each other in months, they hadn’t talked in months, they had cried Jack’s death in months and he, instead of jumping at her neck and choke her with his big hands, _he held her dress._ What was wrong with him? Didn’t he realize that she won at the expense of his brother, who was dead and buried a few inches below, in the stone as hard and cold as the Arena who had been his sepulcher?

“Go away.”

“Felix, I’m really sorry for the dress” Isaac let go of the chiffon train and tortured his own hands. Little drops of sweat breaded his forehead. He was nervous. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry about everything.”

“What… what are you talking about?” Felix was incredulous. Sorry, _him?_ What for? Jack, of course, but why coming to her? As if she didn’t understand, as if she didn’t share the same feeling. Isaac knew that too. Not because she collapsed in front of everyone just six months before. Isaac had known her since she was nine and was aware of his brother’s place in her heart. Maybe he didn’t want to blame her, not in the moment, but why to tell her what she already knew?

“I’m sorry… about everything. I’m sorry I ignored you, I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye the first time when it could have been the last… when I _believed_ it was the last. I’m sorry I never came to the station. I thought… that coming today…” his words got lost in the air. It took Felix a few seconds to understand them and a few more to elaborate them. “You are _apologizing_ to me?”

“Yes” he couldn’t even look her in the eyes, but she didn’t miss how his were small and red. Six months weren’t enough to elaborate that kind of loss, as she very well knew.

“I… maybe my behavior _after_ can be understood, but before, at the reaping… no.”

Felix blinked and looked around, uncomfortable. There were just some Avoxes in the hall, straight from the Capitol for the special occasion, but she didn’t think they’d be useful in any way. Isaac was malfunctioning, there was no other explanation. Something inside him had to be broken if he behaved like that. What a shame that Felix was damaged beyond repair as well and had no use for his apologies. “I do not understand your behavior even now. What do you really want?”

“What… what do I really want?” Isaac frowned. “I believe I have been clear enough. I didn’t behave well towards you. Maybe I hurt you and I am sorry; I am truly sorry. I am just apologizing.”

“You didn’t do _anything_ ” Felix shook her head, her hands rubbing on her arms to warm and comfort herself, to brace her for the terrible truth that was about to come out. “And I didn’t either. I didn’t fix your brother. I didn’t cure him. I didn’t save him. _I didn’t do anything._ Why are _you_ apologizing to _me_?”

Isaac’s eyes were lucid. Felix had no power to ease his pain. Maybe her very presence exacerbated it. She was about to leave, when Isaac blocked her wrist, and let her go as soon as he remembered she didn’t want to be touched. “Don’t’ turn your back on me, please.”

“Isaac, there’s nothing I can do for you.” Her tone was harsher than she planned, but a mean action more, a mean action less, what difference did it make? “I don’t know what to say. I don’t’ know what to do. Leave me alone.”

He let her go, lowering his look and Felix drifted away, to the party outside, where surely her father and Beetee were looking for her. Yet, she could still hear the voice of the boy saying: “It’s not true you did nothing.”

She hesitated for a moment on the door, her heart beating wildly.

Isaac was behind her, offering something she was afraid to seize. _If I look behind, I’m lost._

She went away in the cold December air.

Daesee run towards her and screamed in horror seeing the spot on the dress. “The hell happened? Whose fault is this?”

“Never mind” Felix avoided her and headed to the Victor’s Village. “The party is over.”

“No, it’s not over! The fire-eater just arrived and you haven’t dance, not even once!” Daesee took her wrist, her hold surprisingly strong. Felix reacted by instinct: she turned towards her and hit her on her chest, strong enough to make her let go of her arm. Her stylist widened her eyes, incredulous, and the cruel thought in Felix’s head was that that shocked expression was lovely on her face, always too confident. _You thought me to be like this._

“I am leaving now, and if anyone asks you where am I you answer with a plausible excuse, I don’t care which.”

Daesee nodded and run back to the feast, not before looking at her in a way she couldn’t decipher. Whatever. She felt weak for the effort and the enormous mole of information she was still processing. The cold hair would help her clear her mind while heading to the Victor’s Village and once home she could get rid of that bulky dress, lay under the blankets and rest.

In the streets there were just her and a unit of Peacekeepers that suspended the curfew just for that day, but of course they still had to monitor the streets. One of them tried to approach her but a superior stopped them. Felix went overlooking away. You could think that such a massive presence of Peacekeepers on the territory was a sufficient deterrent to almost set at zero the criminality rate, and yet District 3 didn’t conform. Fustigations weren’t rare, but they weren’t the worst that could happen. Sometimes someone would disappear and reappear days later, sometimes badly beaten, sometimes unharmed, but always changed. After the first disappearance, nobody dared to commit the same crime again. Sometimes, people didn’t reappear at all. Felix had nonetheless noticed a drastic drop of fustigations and disappearances since she came back. Since when everyone got boxes of food, sugar, fabrics and even toys for those children who couldn’t afford more than a rag doll. _It seems like than games and bread more persuasive than fustigations and abductions._ That was the only thought that, sometimes, gave her a bit of peace, knowing that all the bellies in the District would be full for that year. Then she remembered that she bought that food with the two lives she had taken so enthusiastically.

She crossed the gate of the Village, arms crossed to fight the growing cold. Once she got in front of the door, she blocked, realizing she didn’t have the keys. Not even she knew what stopped her from screaming in frustration. The Victor of the Seventy-Nineth Hunger Games, the best chess player of District 3 blocked out her own house because _she forgot her keys._ So, so appropriate.

In the end she sat on the last step of the stairs: she couldn’t call her father anyway, since her phone was in the house, so she could just wait there and hope he’d come soon. The sun was gone by a long time and the slightest orange aura wrapped the factories in the distance, but in the highest part of the sky darkness rose, here and there the sparkling light of a star. Felix observed a particularly shiny one. During the Tour she realized that there the night sky was completely dark: the few stars were scattered and feeble. But in the rural Districts, where they probably didn’t have the electricity at all, night was enlightened by the stars in the sky. Sometimes, if you practiced, you could see patterns in the stars, constellations. Beetee had talked about all those things when, between District 11 and 10, found her in a wagon, head up. In District 3 the only constellation you could see were those of the lamppost at every corner of the street.

“Here you are! But… you’re trembling!”

Felix jumped hearing her father’s voice. Ned lowered to wrap her in a warm hug, then rushed to stick the key in the lock and open the door. Felix rushed in feeling immediate relief. The hating system implanted in the roof and in the floor was always on.

“Are you ok?”

“Yes, why?” Felix put the boiler on the fire. “A cup of tea?”

“That would be great…” her father looked at her suspiciously. It didn’t surprise her. Last time he saw her she spoke one-word sentences and barely walked. “I couldn’t fin you anywhere, so I looked for you and Daesee said you felt sick, so I rushed here.”

She felt her lips curl in an evil smile. “She said something else?”

“No” Ned said hanging the scarf on the hallstand. “Is there anything else?”

“No” Felix answered pouring hot water in the cups. She opened the cupboard and put on the kitchen table, between her and her father, the wooden box where they kept the herbs for the tea. Her father chose cinnamon, while Felix opted for a generous quantity of lavender to fall asleep fast. She wrapped her cup and let the heat seep into her bones, enjoying for once the quietness of their home. Her father updated her on those thirteen days of absence – what he did, the new commissions he got, the mood of the people following her on the big screen in the square – and then looked at her with a smirk the Felix hadn’t seen in _years._ ”What? What’s going on?”

Her father put his cup on the table and said: “Wait here.”

Vaguely annoyed, Felix did as she was told, animated by faint impatience. Ned came back a few seconds later with a little box in his hand and offered it to her: “Happy birthday!”

“Oh” Felix went speechless, then took the gift in her hands. She promptly unpacked the white ribbon and unpacked the blue envelope, exposing a medium-size notebook. The front page was decorated by a chessboard-like pattern, seen from above, with all the pieces in the right places, ready to play. “Thank you! It’s beautiful.”

“It’s not over! Go to the page one” her father was hyper-excited, way more than her, who was still happy about the surprise. She could count on the fingers of one hand the times she had welcome surprises, but that gift certainly was, so she did as she was told. Her father had replies, in his nervous but precise traits, the internal configuration of an analogic clock, with his springs, joints, hidden mechanisms brought to life by sketches and annotations. “It’s wonderful!”

“I’m so very happy you like it” her father caressed her cheek and Felix felt no need to avoid it. She put for a moment her hand on her father’s, always marveled by the kindness of those callous hands, then said she’d go to bed.

While she got out of that ruined dress and dwelled a little too long under the shower, Felix found out that she was surprisingly happy about the notebook – jealously put on her night table – even if saddened by the fact that she had no idea of what to write on it. While she rubbed again her hands with the most scented soap, she had she reflected on the fact that she hadn’t reflected on what happened a few hours before with Isaac. The whole affair remained a mystery to her even under the blankets. Only in the moments before she fell asleep, when her mind already floated in the waves of District 4 during the golden hour, she realized why the analogy with sapphires was too ordinary for Isaac’s eyes.

When she opened her eyes again the waves were still cradling her. She twiddled in that sweet sensation for a little more until she was completely awake again. She felt a bit of nostalgia losing the feeling of the waves. It was odd to feel such a feeling for something she had never experienced, but rolling in the sheets, Felix realized she hadn’t had night nightmares. She ran in the shower, washed herself happily, chose her best clothes and once at the table ate everything her father prepared, for the first time in months hungry like a wolf. When her father asked why such a light mood Felix shrugged. “I’m going at Maya’s.”

The sky was as white as the snow fallen that night, still soft and fresh. It almost hurt to keep her eyes open, all that white blinded her, but it also fed her good mood for all the path to her best friend’s house. Maya and her family weren’t wealthy, not exactly, but it was sufficient to say that Miss Barlow didn’t work and Maya could still afford dome frivolities that for Felix had been unthinkable: a dress chosen for its beauty, not its utility, the option to wait to work, and, above all, no tesserae for more food. They lived nearby Factory Number Two and didn’t need the tram. Felix went at a steady peace filled with happy thoughts, but when she found herself in front of the eight floors of stairs to get at their door she stopped, missing a beat. She immediately turned down the idea of taking the lift and stared at the stairs for a while, before climbing them. _It’s just eight floors. I can manage that._

Even if with an accelerated heartbeat she made it to the door of house Barlow. She knocked and Maya’s mother, Thera, immediately opened the door. From the fabric bags she held, Felix deduced that she was about to go out. Felix marveled again at the extreme resemblance between Maya and Thera, although age had darkened Thera’s hair, turning it into ash-blond rather than her child’s platinum blonde. It created a nice contrast with the light blue eyes. In that moment Felix realized that all her friends’ eyes were of a shade of blue and that thought provoked a cramp at her stomach.

“Hi, Felix! It’s so nice to see you!” Thera gave her a soft smile that Felix tried to return. “Hi, Thera. I was looking for Maya.”

“Darling, she’s at school. Today it’s Tuesday. I was just about to go to the market.”

It took Felix a couple of moments to reach, in the maze of her mind, a concept so long abandoned, school, to apply it to a daily routine. _Of course, she’s at school, we’re in the middle of winter._ School had started three months earlier at least and she missed it, too occupied with staring at the ceiling and invoking a death that never came.

“Are you all right, darling? Do you want something to drink?”

“No, thank you. I’m… I’m going for a walk.” She had no idea where she’d go and suffocated every protest from the woman by rushing down the stairs before she could even talk. Out of the residence she looked at the red bricks building in the distance.

It was one of the few notes of color in that huge pile of grey that was District 3. All buildings seemed to emerge directly from the ground, in squared and aseptic shapes, perfectly functional to host as much people as they could in the minor space possible, totally private of any aesthetic quirk. Felix had never noticed that before, since those were the only buildings she knew, but after her experience at the Capitol and the brief visits in the other Districts she was about to find them repulsive. She still couldn’t think to be able to truly appreciate beauty, to her it was enough for things to be efficient, but those grey and inexpressive buildings seemed the mirror of something she didn’t want to see. They seemed more skeletons in the closet rather than buildings.

That’s why her grey eyes indulged on the red building. On a face, visible in that perspective, there was a giant poster: her Victory Poster. At that distance she could just see the sixty-nine near her face; the writings and her name were unreadable. That poster, once they crowned a new Victor, would disappear, replaced by a new sacrificial lamb, but the other posters, the smaller one scattered in the District, would remain, just like Beetee’s and Wiress’ and the other District 3 Victors’, even those died so long ago that only the oldest could remember. The thought twisted her guts and she obliged herself to turn and focus on the soft and slippery snow underneath her feet.

Hundreds of feet had gone by that path and now the whit was completely gone, cancelled by that disgusting grey that couldn’t really leave District 3. Even though she’d turned and started to walk – heading where, she didn’t know that yet – still had in mind the red bricks of the market. They remined her of District 8, recently visited. Those people’s resentment was tangible. She hadn’t killed their tribute, but she hadn’t hesitated to rip the spear out of his chest for her own purposes. The fact that all the buildings in District 8 had the same color of the market and hadn’t seen not even a blade of grass among those factories almost made her feel like home. What was her home, though? While she put a foot in front of the other on a path she hadn’t walked in a long time, that question kept buzzing in her head like an annoying mosquito, a memory of her summers at District 3 before moving to the Victor’s Village, where the plant growing in her garden kept away every insects whit their stingy smells.

District 3 was her home, no doubt. When she came back from her Games, so long ago, the warmth of her people astonished her. They managed to catch her off guard, because she had always considered her District a place where people lived to work, head down, in perfect synchronism, like a huge clock. You didn’t raise your head in District 3, unless you wished to be fustigated in the public square. It never crossed her mind to do such a thing. What was it for, to expose herself to such a risk against an enemy that couldn’t lose? Felix didn’t commit to lost causes, neither did the majority of the people of District 3. _Yet… it’s not like it, isn’t it?_

Wasn’t she herself a lost cause? A fifteen-years-old from District 3 winning the Games is as much a lost cause as thinking that the falling snow would stay white or hoping to elude the Peacekeepers.

Maybe District 3 had the potential to support lost causes. After all, she did win, right?

Felix answered that yes, she had won indeed. She earned the right to live home in peace and _maybe_ she wasn’t anymore a lost cause. She wasn’t surprised when she raised her eyes and saw her old eyes. One single block of squared cement with two windows each side and a door that didn’t close well. It was hard for her to break inside the narrow kitchen. The air was cold. She walked inside her old home like a ghost. More than abandoned, that house seemed unlived. Her father had watched the Games at the shop, basically living in there. The beds were unmade: no sheets, no pillows, just the white mattress covered in dust. Felix sat there raising a little cloud of translucid dust. She had the impression that the unused furniture and the dull stove were more real than she was. That wasn’t her home anymore, because the girl who used to sleep in that bed was gone.

To which one of them had Isaac apologized? To the fifteen-years-old with sunken cheeks and the sleeves of her clothes too long or to the person that came out of her, like a snake changing its skin? He had talked to her like there was no difference between the two girls, as if he couldn’t see it. He had talked to her in the same way he used to, when she passed the afternoon at his home, during her homework with Jack. With the same kindness. Felix couldn’t really understand why he was so nice to her, why he didn’t rightly accuse her of his brother’s death. He wasn’t mocking her, if he knew him well enough – and she did know him well enough – that hypothesis was to dismiss. Why then? He didn’t owe her any apologies. She owed them to him, to be fair. Isaac had no idea of her promise, not to be her the Victor of District 3, but she didn’t keep it anyway. Her neutrality had been complicity.

Felix sighed. Isaac surprised her and it didn’t happen very often to have someone surprise her. That made her uncertain: what to think? Her head slipped between her hands while she collected her thoughts. Maya was at school and it was eleven in the morning, it would take a while before the end of lessons. Isaac was eighteen and worked in a factory. She wondered how he felt when he escaped his last reaping at his brother’s expense. That thought burned her inside and she rushed away, unable to stay in that house that seemed a grave. She closed the door at her best, because in the eventuality something happened to her, her father would have had to come back in that dump.

She decided to go to the shop.

When she opened the door, the bell sang and she triggered, on alert, then she called herself a fool. She had almost forgotten, so much time had passed since the last time she went there. The expression on her father’s face was priceless and she hid a little smile hanging her coat near the door. The shop was crammed with objects. But there were no doubts why in District 3 Ned Facilis was known as _Watchmaker._

Clocks and watches. Clocks and watches everywhere. Big, small, new, used, packed, in all shapes and sizes. Every single piece was different from the other, every single one distinguished for their details and elegance; to look at them made Felix proud. When you entered for the first time in Facilis’ shop you couldn’t help but be in awe for one, single reason: every clock stroke as one. There was not a single clock that went _tock_ when another one when _tick._ Ned and Felix made sure of that. Music for her hears. In that realm of order and precision nothing could go wrong, so she let her father hug her, happy to see her again their shop. “Was Maya at school?”

“Yes, I’ll go see her later.”

“I wanted to tell you, but you went out so fast. Why this sudden mood switch? Don’t misunderstand me” he rushed, defending himself from the harsh look that Felix gave him. “I’m enthusiastic! I’m happy!”

Felix didn’t answer because the bell rang again, signaling another client. She hid in the back, where her father’s objects lay. She didn’t feel like to take in her hand the screwdriver once again, not yet, so she just flipped through old projects until it was time to go to school.

When she walked down the street people looked at her and she tried not to mind. Probably they were more surprised about the fact that she went out after months of reclusion, rather than her Victor status. Once she got in front of the school, she felt a wave of sadness that threatened to stop her there. Memories of what had been were too vivid, but what made her stop suddenly, as if she got electric shock run in her body, was this acknowledgment: she couldn’t remember her last day of school. She couldn’t remember which lessons she followed, what she ate at the cafeteria, what Maya talked about. She couldn’t even remember what they did on that afternoon: whether they all went at Jack’s or looked for a spot of sun or if they just said _see you later._ A later that never came…

“Felix!”

Maya jumped right in front of her, her face enlightened by joy, hugging her. She was a bit taller than Felix and way more easily surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to say hi” Felix shrugged her shoulders. She had never told her, but when Maya was enthusiastic her cheeks turned red, creating a lovely contrast with her candid skin and her light eyes. She seemed a child, with those round cheeks. “What would you like to do?”

“You have to help me with my homework” the girls answered tragically. “They’re impossible!” Felix, who was pretty used to this conversation, raised her eyebrow. “Do I have to help you or do I have to do it for you?”

“You truly are untrusting.”

Felix couldn’t deny it, so she shrugged and let her best friend’s hand guide her.

The following months were strange for her. The passing of winter and the arrival of spring and the consequential alternating of rain, snow and sun matched with the storm she felt within. By now the reaping was her landmark to keep track of time and the Tour signaled that half a year had already passed. The second half was revealing better than the first. She could get up almost every day and were times, like when she went to school for Maya, that she felt a little hope lighten her up. It happened that she opened her eyes… and felt _something_ that pushed her to go down, to spend some time with her father, Beetee or Maya. There were other days when the mere thought of stepping a foot outside her home was unthinkable and the heath of the shower was the only one, she could tolerate on her skin. One thing was constant, though: her growing anxiety, now that the end of the year approached and the days lengthened and summer kicked out snow, wind and rain.

Felix walked down her District and couldn’t help but wonder which one of the kids she saw would become her tribute. She didn’t see people, just lost causes. Kids in reaping age seemed to wonder the same. When she passed, they turned their head, who couldn’t do anything to prevent their fears. There was no certainty of safety in Panem. It was sure instead that she’d catch that train again and would sit on the other side, safe. She agreed with her Mentors that she and Beetee would go, because they were all aware of the fact that the girl couldn’t face that without his support. She was sorry to overload his shoulder with double work to instruct both her and the tributes, but it was necessary. Beetee had smiled as usual and invited her to play chess with him, but Felix declined the offer. She couldn’t still move the pieces. It disturbed her in such an intimate level that she couldn’t bear it.

Waiting for Maya outside her school and then going home to chat and do her homework became a habit. Obviously, Felix did Maya’s homework and Maya chatted. Sometimes, while she waited in front of the gate, arms crossed, the surprised voice of some teacher brought her back to the present and made her talk to people who seemed to come from a faraway past, whom Felix didn’t trust. Nothing was more uncomfortable than her old science teacher’s question, mister Verbessern.

“Why don’t you come back at school? You’re sixteen, it would be a shame if you gave up like that.”

Felix, upset by his tone and by the fact he hadn’t even greeted her, didn’t get the trouble to answer. The question was stingy and the subtext even more. _It would be a shame if you didn’t finish school._ As if she had a future in front of her. As if completing her education could still be of any use. She would live off the interest her entire life.

Yet, a small part of her was charmed with that idea. Felix liked studying and being the first of her class: she was always sure to be the most prepared and smart one in the room. Her Games proved that to be true even in an Arena. But even before her personal pleasure, of her satisfaction in exceeding in something, there was something else, the knowledge of building a future within the District’s economy, of ensuring a better life than the one she was living then. She used to study to become engineer and do what she loved the most: fixing broken things, creating new ones. What use could be to come to school now? Her only job from that year on would be to become a mentor.

That afternoon Maya was talking about a girl Felix had never heard of some Max who was getting it on with a blonde girl Maya could never meet. Felix couldn’t care less about District 3’s up and downs – the mere word “love” squeezed her stomach – but she usually enjoyed the gossip Maya could collect. She recognized her the ability to look like an innocent flower while being the snake underneath it and knowing everyone’s business before they knew that themselves.

All of that confirmed what Felix already knew. Maya and she were two sides of the same coin, because they both wanted to be in charge and feel the most powerful people inside a room. She didn’t use to pay attention to it, but in that moment, raising her eyes to look at her friend, that thought filled her with sadness. To be in charge, to be the most powerful… all for nothing. They wanted to defend themselves from something that couldn’t really hurt them. They couldn’t defend from something that could, instead, do much more than hurt them. She suddenly realized they had never talked about Jack. The mere thought made her hands itch. She couldn’t face that topic. Not yet. Her sight was clouded.

Maya was all alone. One year earlier, exactly one year earlier, during one of the coolest spring District 3 had ever seen, they had been a trio. They shared the same fears. Now they were two and the world regarded them as lucky. Had it gone wrong, there’d be only Maya left. Maya, with her snow hair and sky eyes, red cheeks like children’s. Like the children that would go the square waiting for two of them to be called to die for a crime none of them committed. 

Jack lay three feet underground and Felix would be on the mentor’s stage, on the other side. Maya was going to be alone, not even Isaac would be with her, a name among thousands of others. The odds called two of her friends on the stage, and it had been casual. Would it be casual to hear Rufus’ voice call Maya Barlow to represent District 3?

She almost didn’t notice to have rushed to the door, but Maya blocked her there. Felix tried to avoid her, but Maya hugged her, wrapping her from behind and resting her face on her back. Felix felt her body tense like waiting for a whip, then almost melted in that hug. She slipped on the ground, her hand on Maya’s, unable to speak. What her mind speculated was simply unconceivable. Unacceptable. Unluckily to happen.

But she couldn’t rely on statistics, she knew that very well. Felix wanted to be the most powerful and to always be able to defend herself, yet in that moment she realized that even as Victor she couldn’t do that. Maya, hugging her from behind, more than a friend, seemed a target.

“I miss him so much” Maya sighed. “I miss him so much.”

Felix’s stone heart trembled. She could almost see him, kneeling in front pf her, caressing her face with the same care of Maya’s hugs. His long and dark hair, his transparent eyes, his lips curved in a sad smile. He was never as real as Lucy. To see him, she had to imagine him. He never suddenly appeared, in some dark corner of her house. She had to call him. In that moment she looked at him in his eyes, her cheeks filled with tears, her chest crumbling down her sorrow. He _wasn’t there_ , he died, and his absence cried more than the most thunderous silence. Maya was torn, but Felix was broken beyond any repair.

“I cannot free you of this pain.”

Hard words that hurt more Felix who said them than Maya who listened to them. Truth didn’t easy any pain, not to her who couldn’t help her friend, not to them who played a game far too dangerous. How could she spend so much time with her, to wait for her every day after school, take her hand, pass just like that right in front of the Peacekeeper’s garrison, where everyone could see them? She felt Maya move against her back, maybe to leave her, but Felix forbid her, holding her hands against her chest. _Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me as well._

“Why are you so difficult, Felix?” Maya didn’t let her go, but she could hear frustration in her voice. Felix could say she was wrong. She felt like an elastic pulled to the maximum, as if a part of her was left behind and what was left of her heart had been dragged to the present… but the only certainty, in a place where time seemed almost frozen, was the trail of blood she left behind her: hers, Jack’s, her victim’s. She didn’t want to have Maya’s to soak her hands too.

“I don’t know” Felix answered, the best she could spit out. _Why are you so difficult?_ ”I really don’t know”

She didn’t come home that night; she took shelter in Beetee’s sofa looking for a comfort her father couldn’t give her. She phoned home to tell him not worry – although the Watchmaker’s voice was _very_ worried – and got in the kitchen to sort her thoughts. Beetee survived thanks to miss Chastain, the butcher’s sister, that cleaned and cooked for him, too occupied with his projects to worry about such prosaic things. She hadn’t cooked yet when Felix got there but accepted quickly to come home earlier. She gave her a candy - “you are a good girl!” - and went out whistling. When she could work with fine food, she could create special meals. Cooking relaxed her. Ingredients had a certain harmony she liked to find out. Her mother had left her a cookbook she studied maniacally.

Wiress came right for dinner, but Felix wasn’t unprepared. While her mentors complimented for her culinary skills, Felix just rolled her forks in the mashed potatoes, unable to eat a single bite of it. “You think they’re going to choose her?”

“Who?” Beetee asked.

“Maya! You think they’re going to choose her? At the Reaping?”

“Why would they?” Beetee seemed vaguely confused.

“Because she’s my friend! We’ve been walking together all these months, I always waited for her outside school, we’re always together…” Felix couldn’t breathe well. She couldn’t lose Maya too, she couldn’t.

He mentor’s face darkened. “Something happened? Something you didn’t tell me?”

“What? No!” Felix shook her head, like a liar. She hadn’t talked with Beetee about Isaac, but she hadn’t with anyone, nor she thought it was that important.

“Then you don’t have to worry, Felix…” Wiress’ dreamy voice answered. “If nothing happened…”

“You don’t have to worry” Beetee concluded for her. “Not more than usual, anyway.”

This couldn’t pacify her anxiety. It would have been like that for other _three_ years. Every time, safe knowing to have played her part. Every time, sitting on the mentor’s stage simulating an indifference she couldn’t feel. Every time, trembling hoping in Maya Barlow’s safety. She couldn’t explain that irrational fear holding her stomach, that certainty they’d pick _her_ , her in particular, her with those cheeks too round and red.

She missed something, although she didn’t know what. That panic didn’t just closed her stomach, it also darkened her mind.

The Reaping day was sunny and as warm as a smile. A harsh contrast with the greyness of the year before. Felix climbed on the mentors’ stage, trying to hide the panic she felt. She studied her image on the screen with a swift look. Under the sunlight her eyes were green, her eyebrows frowned. Only her hands on her trousers betrayed her anxiety. Felix tried to stop, looking at Rufus, happily reading the Treaty of Treason. _Not Maya, not Maya._ He couldn’t guide her to her death. Anyone else, not her. Any other girl but her. _Rufus, lead well your hand._ Had Rufus listened to her prayers even the year before, in that moment Felix would be among the crowd, holding Maya’s hand and hoping not to be chosen. Felix breathed heavily by her nose; her eyes fixed on the unknowing escort. Sometimes she envied his naivety and the constant joy he seemed to feel. Beetee murmured her name, but it wasn’t enough to catch her attention.

“Now it’s time to choose the great tributes representing District 3 in the Seventieth Hunger Games!”

He went to the boys bowl followed by the ticking sound of his shoes on the stage. Typical. Rufus used to choose randomly between one gender or the other. He chanted, anxious to pick the lucky boy who’d die that year. Felix could barely hear him over the sound of her beating heart, so hard that it seemed to bite her chest to run away, get free, not to suffer. She could feel her nails biting her hands.

Rufus mixed the tickets for a few seconds before he extracted the right one. Anonymous among many, safety for a few, death for one.

“The male boy of District 3 is… Leonard Velazquez!”

Felix didn’t join to the collective sigh of relief, since she had no interest in the guy who, pale, was walking the stairs of the stage. His hair was so dark and curly that he seemed electrified. He seemed to prefer that, seeing how he twisted his hands.

“Perfect, dear. Now the valorous girl! Let’s hope she follows the example of last year!”

They didn’t trick the tickets, right? What for? She behaved; she had no reason to be punished…

_Choose well, choose well, anyone but her, anyone, anyone, I’ve been good, and I did nothing wrong I smiled I waved I’ve been good-_

Rufus picked a ticket from the surface, no thought, happy and anxious to know the lucky name.

Felix breathed by her nose; her heart ready to explode. Rufus had to hurry and read that damn name or she’d vomit right there, and nobody wanted that, _move, came on!_

She saw that on the big screen.

When he opened the ticket and his eyes read the name in nice writing, he smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are with the 4th chapter... hope you like it!  
> You can find us here: [superattivehblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/superkattivehblr)


	5. But you will be the Greatest among them

Her tribute had just died, as she predicted.

_It doesn't mean it hurts any less._

Felix hated, hated being always right.

She could barely hear the cannon above the heartbeats rumbling in her ear. So, District 3 was out of the Games. Strange that it had lasted so long. She found it ironic that Leonard had died on the fifth day, just like Jack. The girl who had come with him, Rea, had died in the bloodbath. Courtesy of the District 4 boy’s spear.

She wiped the tears angrily away before they could streak her face. She didn't expect such a reaction. She knew, she had known since she got home that the 69th would be an exception to the rule. A fifteen and a thirteen-year-old. They would have never won.

Beetee, sitting next to her, was cleaning his glasses harder than usual.

“Does it get easier over time?” she asked in a dry voice.

Beetee did not raise his head but sighed. “I don't know if it gets easier. But you certainly get used to it. When we win… it's a surprise. You never know when it will happen again. Maybe next year. “

“I don't think so” the girl replied. “But if you want, you can stay home. You taught me how to do it. “

“We'll see” Beetee said. But his distraught expression was already an answer. Felix found herself feeling compassion for her mentor. He was at the helm in their group. They would keep Wiress from coming, for her sake. In the days leading up to the Reaping she had grown restless, more prone to long silences and sudden bursts of inspiration - Felix had never seen her so focused on so many projects at once. She assumed it was her way of dealing with things. Felix wouldn't have made it to the Capitol without someone to lean on. So, it all fell on her old mentor’s shoulders, who had them hunched under the weight of all the tributes he had lost. Perhaps one day Felix could be to him what Beetee was to her. But that wasn't the day. That day Felix was just a helpless little girl who had witnessed for the umpteenth time the death of someone she desperately wanted to save.

“I'm going to my room. You coming?” she asked him.

“No, I'll be up soon” he replied. “Haymitch is in very bad shape over there. I'll try to have a chat.”

“Okay” Felix shrugged. If that was the way he dealt with the situation, she was no one to stop him. Plus, it would do her good to spend some time alone. While she waited for the lift to arrive her gaze fell on the group of Careers - their mentors - where Finnick and Cashmere entertained with huge smiles two gentlemen with identical walrus mustaches, one fat and the other thin. A cold shiver ran down her spine as she saw _where_ the fat man's hand was resting, and she wondered if she, like Cashmere, would be able to endure it for her own tributes’ sake. Finnick caught her eye and winked at her before laughing at a joke. It was a relief to step into the elevator and shut the whole world out. Her heartbeat thundered loudly in her ears, but she wasn't about to cry again. She just had to be alone. 

The next day she got up too early. Her night had been haunted by Jack and her tribute taking each other by the hand throwing themselves off a cliff, where the white snake waited for them with its jaws open.

She sat to admire the sunrise in the living room, thinking about how, exactly a year ago, she was under the knife unaware of what was about to happen. Bombarded with painkillers and medicines that soothed the pain, even what she felt inside. But they only treated the symptoms, not the disease itself. The hole in her chest was still there, jagged and stone. There was no place in her heart for another grief of that magnitude. For the past year she had only felt fear. Nothing but terror so internalized that it took the anniversary of her Victory to make her understand.

Those fears were not unmotivated - the fear of dying, the fear of Isaac's judgment, the fear of not being loved by her father anymore, the fear _of living_ \- all fears that were more than understandable, all fears that she could explain. All but one. That absolute and unshakable certainty of seeing her best friend take the stage as a tribute the day of the Reaping. 

But why had she been so sure? This was the question she could not answer. A simpler mind would have dismissed it as a stupid irrational fear, but Felix, whose mind was like a great clock, knew there were no irrational fears. Fear kept her alive. Felix never distrusted it.

Dawn tinged the sky of the Capitol orange. There were no stars there, too, but the nights weren't dark. She didn't even believe that the Capitolines could imagine it, true darkness. The darkness that arises within and erupts like an oil well. She saw the face of a boy with wavy hair and blue eyes beside her, but it was an image so vague it looked like a ghost. Three hundred and sixty-six days without him. How much she had wanted to save him. How much she had wished not to die. At that moment she wanted to reach out and be able to caress his face. But she was afraid of dirtying it. Staining his white skin with the black blood that ran in her heart. The oil in her veins badly oiled the ruby gears - _only the best watches have rubies in the gears_ \- that jammed, screeched, created friction in that broken machine. 

Felix took off her glasses and began cleaning them with the hem of her shirt. They didn't really need it, but that gesture helped her to think and compose herself. If in the blazing Capitoline dawn, she could find no comfort, she would do it in her own head.

When they had taken the first piece from her, her mother, she had lost a part of herself that she no longer felt the lack of. The light-heartedness, the enthusiasm, the ingenuity... in the end they didn't help. Conforming to life hadn't been that difficult. Losing that piece had forced her to create others to protect her weaknesses. Not beautiful, but functional.

Then they had taken those too. And they had thrust their hand into her chest, smashed her ribs, grabbed her heart and uprooted everything violently to leave a hole where the engine should have been. _My heart is not my engine,_ she had repeated several times, _it is not what drives me forward._ Maybe not, she told herself as she watched the sun get higher and higher, but obviously she couldn't help it. If she moved without a heart like a horrible rag doll with severed threads it meant that she was an object of a completely different nature from what she had always believed. 

Felix sighed. For a year now, not even her head was a safe place. Luckily for her, Beetee entered the living room of their apartment at that moment and wished her good morning with a smile. The girl felt a familiar warmth expand around the hole and barely warm it. “Good morning.”

“It surely is for me” replied her Mentor, helping himself to donuts and coffee. “For Haymitch… it won’t be. Yesterday it went down really hard. More than usual.”

“Why did you stay with him?”

“We've known each other for years” Beetee shrugged. “I saw him in bad shape and I couldn't leave him there. I don't even think he noticed me. Yesterday his tribute died. “

_Mine too,_ Felix thought _,_ fiddling with the eggs on her plate, _but I'm not doing so badly._ But then it occurred to her that there were many ways to harm yourself, some of which she was more than familiar with, so she kept that unfair thought to herself. “How come they let him? Shouldn't he be more…” she really had no idea what she meant, so she let the part of herself that listened to Rufus speak. “More polite?”

Beetee laughed and Felix found herself giggling too. It was absurd to think such a thing, but when she was with Beetee she felt like a soft blanket resting on her shoulders, soft and comforting, giving her that warmth comparable to the caress of the summer sun. Whenever her green eyes met Beetee's hazel eyes, wide when excited about something or distant when lost in thought, a delicate hand stroked her cheeks and ensured her perpetual support.

Talking to him was like talking to her father, except that with Beetee she didn't need to filter her thoughts or justify her behavior. Ned was so dear, but he was a father who desperately wanted to see his daughter happy, not understanding that such a thing would never be possible. Not with the work she had to do, not with what she had been through. He was excited by any progress - so he called it, progress - that she made. Did she go out to buy meat? Progress. Did she come to the shop? Progress. Could she get out of bed three days in a row? Progress. They all seemed mediocrity to Felix, but she censored herself so as not to upset him. By now, in fact, it was her turn to take care of her father and that was a compromise that, for his sake, she could accept. With Beetee it was different and there was no filter between her mind and her mouth. The sincerity was mutual and comforting.

“They don't care what Haymitch does. Nor does Haymitch. He cares least of all.”

“Impossible.”

“Think about it” Beetee said. “Why does Haymitch take the luxury of throwing up on even the most influential sponsors of the Capitol and no one moves a finger to stop him?”

“Because he is not afraid of repercussions. But it's absurd.” That was the only plausible answer, but it was also unlikely. How many Winners with family and tributes and loved ones wouldn't fear repercussions?

“It's not absurd if you think about it. I'll give you a clue. Change the assumption you are starting from.”

Felix thought about it all the way on the train, at the table, in the shower, even before going to bed. Only when the next morning they arrived at the sunny station in District 3, when Beetee kissed Wiress with infinite delicacy and Maya ran into her arms that she understood. Haymitch didn't have them. He didn't have a Wiress to kiss on his way back from the Capitol, he didn't have a Maya who would crush him in a hug after a few days away. He didn't have a father to welcome him back. She marveled at herself. How could it have taken her so long to figure it out? Haymitch was the perfect example, the consequence of the actions she feared most. She had no idea what he'd done to get to that point, but she was sure she didn't want to go down that road.

Which didn't make his situation with Maya easy.

She was updating her on the Games. “They beheaded the boy from District 4… I felt like throwing up” the girl explained. Just recalling the event had made her face greenish and in fact Felix did not doubt even a second of her version. It must have happened the day before, after Leonard's death, when she had completely stopped following the Games. “Last evening?”

“This morning” Maya replied. “His District mate has really freaked out. I really felt sorry for her, I don't think she'll make it.”

Felix slowly turned to Maya. Her friend hadn't said anything bad, but she still felt hurt.

“Yup. She started crying and screaming and dropped all weapons and fled. The others didn't even bother to follow her.” Maya looked her up and down. “What's up?”

Felix had no idea, but if her hands were clenched in fists, there must be a reason. Her father spoke quietly to Maya, who occasionally threw her insistent glances, but the girls were good at concealing the moment of coldness that had arisen, at least in front of him. Perhaps he had found a foothold for what he had to do.

“Did I say something wrong?” Maya asked as they arrived in front of the Victors’ Village as Ned headed home.

“No” Felix sighed, looking away, anywhere but her best friend's face. “Then why are you acting like this? Why don't you look at me?”

Felix took off her glasses and began cleaning the lenses with the hem of her skirt. Glasses that had been chosen for her, glasses that she wore for the pleasure of others. Glasses that reminded her of who was in charge. And what she should do to limit the damage. Maya tugged at her hand to end the silence that Felix had fallen into, but she reacted with anger. “You cannot touch me like that!”

“Then answer me!” Maya stamped her foot on the ground and only then Felix realized how she too had stopped wearing those little girl dresses with the hem below the knee. It was a stupid thought, but it broke her heart.

“You have to leave me alone” Felix finally murmured.

“Sure, we'll talk about it tomorrow.” Maya rolled her eyes and started to leave, but Felix took her wrist and pinned her in place. “No, you have to leave me alone. Forever.”

“What ...” Maya freed herself from her grip as if through an electric shock. “What the hell are you saying?”

“I'm saying” Felix replied, spelling out the words neatly “that I don't want to be your friend anymore. That I don't want to see you anymore.”

His words remained suspended in the hot summer air for a few seconds, the time necessary to break through Maya and make her eyes widen in complete dismay. “Are you crazy?”

“No, not at all” the girl replied, clenching her fists. Earlier, when Maya mentioned the girl from District 4 that she lost her mind, she got annoyed, she couldn't deny it. She too had freaked out last year and the memory was all too vivid in her head. But that wasn't the reason why she said those words. Forcing herself to take them out of her mouth cost her much more than anything else she had ever done. Wandering around exhausted in search of help in the Arena, thrust the spear into Lapis's stomach, suffocate Lucy… Nothing compared to the falsehoods she was saying. “I'm not crazy. I am very sane. I've been thinking through everything I'm telling you. _I don't want to be your friend anymore.”_

She wasn't lying about the first part. The last sentence, on the other hand, was a small but effective left-handed trick. She didn't just take care of her father. Maya, too, was her responsibility.

“But why!? Is that why I said earlier? I'm sorry I offended you, but I don't think you need to exaggerate like this!”

“I'm not exaggerating, it's not for what you said before ...” Feeling her intentions fail Felix cleared her throat, to give her - and give herself - an attitude. “None of your business. _I don't care about you anymore.”_

Maya sobbed, but her expression was livid. Felix felt the urge to hug her and reveal that it was all a lie, that none of what she said was true, but she held back. Her fingernails pierced her palms by now and her vision was blurred. She took a shaky breath to clear her mind and stay clear. But nothing had prepared her for the outburst that followed.

“You're a selfish bitch!”

Felix winced, but did not contradict her. Part of her understood that they would talk about _him_ in what would be their last conversation. 

“You're not the only one who has lost someone! Jack was also _my_ friend _!_ Why are you doing this? Do you think you are the only one who suffers?” Maya sobbed again and wiped away her tears with anger, her breath missing. Felix had Jack's handkerchief in her blouse pocket, but she didn't move a finger to give it to her. “I know that you are the one who went into the Arena with him, I know that what you suffered, I cannot even imagine. But this… _this!_ ” 

Felix could not stop herself from sobbing, nor the tears streaming down her cheeks. That was the cruelest thing she had ever done. But she didn't speak. She said nothing. If she spoke, she would never let her go again. If she spoke, she would tie her to herself, and if she ever made a mistake, if she deviated from the path laid out for her, even in the most innocent way possible, Maya would pay the consequences. It was better to push her away. It was better that way.

“Felix, will you fucking answer me? We are friends, you and me, we both lost him! I… I… “ Maya burst into uncontrollable tears, her beautiful face disfigured with pain and disappointment. She could see it in her eyes every time she looked at her. The resentment of others had always been bearable. But that hurt look on Maya's face… she had caused it. Finally, Felix answered her. “We're not friends.”

“It's not true! We are best friends! We've known each other since we were born, we've always been together, I… I… “ Maya covered her mouth with her hand, then exploded. “I love you, I wanted _you_ to win, I wanted it to be _you_ and not him and ... and ...” 

Maya now seemed unable to articulate a meaningful sentence. She was about to give her the handkerchief again. She had to be inflexible, act as if she felt no emotion. In those critical moments, they altered her judgment. If she had listened to them, she would have hugged her best friend and told her she loved her, but not like that. And that didn't matter. That she would have wanted her with her always and in any case.

“I wanted him to die as well. I didn't love him, I don't love anyone, least of all you.”

It was like stabbing Lapis again. No, it was ten times worse. She was plunging a sword into Maya's heart as she looked into her eyes. She had to turn the sword into the wound, tear her heart out, sever the link, and let the world know that Maya Barlow was no longer of any importance to Felix Facilis, and that killing her would do no good. “I could _never_ love you.” 

She knew nothing about Lapis but his name and that he was a threat to be eliminated for her and Jack's sake. Yet his eyes so similar to Jack's, _the eyes of a boy,_ haunted her so much that if she noticed someone on the street who reminded her of them, she’d look down. 

She knew everything about Maya. What she loved, what she hated, the exact shade of blue of her eyes. Soon, she wouldn't be able to bear even her gaze.

“You're a coward” whispered the tearful girl. “You are a coward and you are also cruel. Why, why are you telling me this ... “

“Because I don't care about you or anyone. You have no value to me. Are you also stupid? Go away. I want nothing to do with your love. Go find someone else.”

“You…”

“Don't come near.” Felix froze her eyes and stepped back. She saw the exact moment her best friend's heart broke, the moment a shadow darkened her eyes and anger stiffened her limbs. But it was her words that threw poison into the bottomless pit she had instead of her heart. And her voice. Feral. She had no doubts. She had looked the same as she killed Lucy.

“ _You_ are a coward. _You_ have repudiated everything and everyone. _You_ have no value.” she wasn't lying. Eyes can't lie. Not if they are that clear. Not if it's that easy to read inside. Maya turned away from her and never looked back. 

If Lucy had felt this way in the last moments before she died, if she had felt the same fear, the same shame, the same desire to tear her heart out of her chest to step on it, Felix was glad to have killed her.

She made sure Maya made her way home, then shuffled her feet to her mansion, where she ignored her father's calls and locked herself in the bathroom, wiping her tears. She took Jack's handkerchief from his pocket and took a deep breath of its scent between sobs, but it smelled nothing like him _,_ only the detergent they used to wash it. She found no comfort in it and cried in the shower until she could no longer produce any tears. At that point, she lay with her head on her knees staring into an indefinite spot. 

Maya had believed it so easily.

She had given her every reason to do it, she had been a bad friend. All those years of taking her company for granted, and then the last few months had given the impression of suffering her presence, rather than desiring it ... But ...

_But I went to pick her up from school_ , whispered a little voice that threatened to make her cry again, _I looked for her, I wanted to be with her._ Evidently it wasn't enough, but Felix didn't know how to love otherwise. She remembered an exhausted Jack who opened his eyes happy to see her, but surprised. _"You're back!"_

_Of course I came back,_ she answered, she told him, she looked him in the eyes and promised she would come back for him, but he didn't believe it. Not really, not quite. It wasn't just her hands that were dirty, her conscience was as well. 

When she locked herself in her room and threw herself on the bed, once again waiting for something that wouldn't come, she realized that if not ending up like Haymitch meant all of this, maybe it didn't make that much of a difference. 

The problem was only one: Felix knew herself. All too good. In the Games she had learned everything, especially the things she would have preferred to remain a mystery. Jack had been her breaking point. She had never been so torn, so unable to focus and follow the plan. And now that Jack was gone ...

It was her job to protect her family. Ned was no longer the head of the family now, although he didn't realize it, and Maya was like a sister to her, she had to take care of her. Minimizing the chances of being chosen was the only way. _That_ was the only way. She had been repeating it for days to find the strength to do it, but just seeing Leonard throw himself off the dam in order not to be killed had given her the strength to do it. What friend would she have been if he had allowed her to do such a thing? Which sister would have exposed her to such a high risk? 

Not her. Not Felix.

She would turn over in bed and keep repeating it, continuing to report facts after facts to prove what was said, repeating to herself that even if it hurt it was the right thing to do. That this was the only way to minimize the danger, that there was no other way out, period. She couldn't explain, though, _why she_ was so scared. _Why did she_ feel so terrified, _why_ everywhere she turned she saw nothing but dead ends and white tombs, why, why, why. 

Once again the summer turned out to be completely contradicting her mood. Her father had tried to ask questions about Maya's absence, but Felix's glances and shrugs - that simulated indifference she could put on so well - were enough to make him retreat. The Peacekeepers' commissions kept him busy enough and so one day he asked her to help him out. 

“To pass the time” he said at dinner that night. Since Felix didn't have much to do, she nodded, trying not to think about the overalls folded over, the ones Maya had indicated as “perfect for your job!”

Getting back to work wasn't all that bad. The familiar weight of the tools in her hand comforted her. To unscrew screws, to disassemble the pieces and arrange them in front of herself in neat rows, to clean them with the right amount of acids and bases, to fix a piece that seemed irrecoverable and finally readjusting everything calmly and discover that it worked even managed to make her smile, sometimes .

Mrs. Chastain always brought her candy when she found her at the counter - her father was in the warehouse handling orders from the barracks - and made sure to leave her some items for repair and greet Ned. 

“Sure” Felix replied in a dull voice, then took the candies and closed them in a drawer.

It annoyed her to see her buzzing around her all the time, especially since there were customers who really needed to fix the radios and televisions, and there was someone - the really wealthy ones, who had never set foot inside the Watchmaker’s shop before his daughter won the Games - who commissioned watches from _scratch._ The more treacherous part of her wanted to pull the price up with those people, but her knowledge of being rich - and her father - made her desist. That day she was writing the inventory when a voice she knew well pulled her out of her thoughts. “Oh, um… hi Felix.”

Felix's hand froze on the paper, her head still bent over her notes. She couldn't believe it. She forced herself to raise her head and her eyes met Isaac's blue ones. 

“Hello.” she finally answered. What an embarrassing situation. 

“I didn't expect to find you here” the boy said. “You're never here.”

“What do you need?” Felix asked, diverting the subject. She had no idea how to handle the conversation after what they had said to each other that winter. It was better to maintain a professional relationship.

“Oh” Isaac looked troubled by her coldness, but he answered trying to remain friendly. “I'd like to know if you're still doing home repairs.”

“Sure”Felix replied. She noticed that Isaac's eyes were small, as if he had recently cried, but they weren't as red as the last time they saw each other.

“Great,” the boy smiled through his teeth, as he did before, as if he knew something you were unaware of and found it very funny. She was sorry that the veiled sadness made him look more like an imitation rather than a real smile. “I bought a new TV recently. Apparently they got me. I can't fix it.”

“Okay, it shouldn't take long” the girl replied. TVs were not demanding. She took his father's diary and looked for a day off. “Is Wednesday okay?”

“At what time?”

“When are you free?”

“I'm off at eight in the evening, curfew is at nine,” he replied with a falsely pained expression, then shrugged. “I don't want to get in trouble.”

“You don't get in trouble,” Felix replied, rolling her eyes. “It won't take long to fix your television. I fix it, and then go home. "

“What if _you get_ in trouble?” Isaac looked her straight in the eye and his face broke into a defiant smile. “You're not above the rules either, you know?”

Felix did not answer him, just chilled him with a look and said she would come to his house at a quarter past eight on Wednesday.

“Okay, I'll give you my address” Isaac said.

“I know where you live” Felix replied. “Or has your newfound sympathy made you forget it?”

“I don't live with my parents anymore.”

Felix blinked, confused. Isaac worked in a factory, but it was rare to find a nineteen year old completely self-employed. In District 3, the odds of survival were higher in groups. Having a family or someone you could rely on was the only thing that kept you from going crazy when you realized you were living to work. Even _she_ relied on her father. “How come you live alone?” 

“Because the situation in my house is unbearable. My father is not… and my mother… well, my mother is who she is and she cannot be changed” the boy replied, frowning. For a moment he lost himself looking at a spot just over Felix's shoulder, then he came to his senses and tried to put on a smile to chase that shadow out of his eyes, but he didn't succeed very well. “But what am I complaining about? I'm gone and I _really_ need a working TV.” 

“Sure” Felix replied, feeling the chill spread inside her. _You're not the only one in pain,_ Maya had told her, and here's the proof. It had never occurred to her, not once, to go to Jack's family home. Of course, she had thought of Isaac and the terror she felt at the idea of being hated by him, by a friend to whom she had turned her back when he offered her the absolution she so desperately craved, but she had never taken concrete steps to prove… that she deserved it? That she really cared about him? 

“So ... you better give me the new address,” the girl murmured, taking a pencil. She avoided looking at him in the eyes, but still felt his gaze on her. She couldn't have said why, but his voice sounded like that of a tired man, so different from the one of the sunny and slightly brash boy that she remembered. “I'm on the third floor of the fifth building in the Spoil.”

Felix's eyes widened. “In the Spoil?”

“That's the place for unskilled workers.” Isaac laughed at her bewilderment. “It's not very far from where you lived, is it?”

“No, in fact,”replied the girl, still amazed by the revelation. “It won't be hard to find.”

“Yeah.” Isaac stared at her for a moment or two, then smiled and greeted her as he headed for the exit. “Then I’ll see you Wednesday.”

The girl nodded. It would have been troublesome to get home in time, but she didn't feel like leaving Isaac without a TV for too long. At least he could have tuned in to a music channel or news and have someone to keep him company.

The boy started to leave, but stopped at the half-open door and the trilling bell. “You know, I'm really glad to see you again.”

“Thanks,” the girl replied. She found herself sincerely grateful and a tiny, slightly embarrassed smile curled her lips. “See you Wednesday, then.”

“I'll make myself look handsome, don't worry,” he winked at her and went away accompanied by the trill of the bell. Felix watched him go through the glass of the door, until he disappeared behind a building headed for who knows where. She wasn't sure, but that last smile he had given her, that sharp, candid smile, had seemed to her a real smile.

Wednesday came without too many hitches.

Wandering the streets and tunnels of the district was not difficult for her: her feet knew the way and walked paths she had never forgotten, despite the fact that it had been more than a year since she had wandered this area. Isaac was wrong: the Spoil was not near where she used to live, the Spoile _was_ where she used to live before, in one of the most remote and _coldest_ areas of District 3. Except that she lived in one of those cubic concrete blocks, scattered around on the rough asphalt through which some plants managed to grow. Isaac lived in a dreary, dilapidated building, one she couldn't see from the windows - she didn't have any looking out that side of the Spoil - and about ten minutes of walk from the tram stop. Finding an unknown place there was practically impossible, but only those who had lived there were able to recognize points of reference, to distinguish houses, to find shortcuts. Felix figured Isaac took the longer route because he was not yet familiar with that area. In fact, at ten past eight on Wednesday, Felix was on the third floor of the fifth building sitting on the stairs, waiting for the boy. He hadn't told her which door to knock on. 

“Hey, hi” the boy exclaimed as he exited the elevator when he saw her. “Right on time.” 

“I'm always on time,” Felix replied. “You should… avoid using the elevator. They are not as stable as you think. “

“I thought so” Isaac replied with a shrug. “Come on, if you hurry you’ll get home on time.”

He turned the key in the lock and invited her in. Felix made her way down a corridor with gray, slightly peeling walls to end up in a square room that served as a kitchen and living room. He assumed it was his bedroom too, as the only open door led to a small bathroom. He was babbling about something about work, but Felix wasn't paying attention to it. Her eyes scanned the bare walls and the untouched kitchen to the television on the other side of the room. There wasn't even a picture of his family: no Jack, no friends, nothing. Either he had recently moved, or he was having a really bad time.

“Do you want something? Some tea?” the boy asked, rummaging in the kitchen. He had placed his work helmet on the table and was rummaging through the lockers.

“No” the girl replied. “You should prepare something for you to eat.”

“Well well” the boy chuckled. “Are you worried about me?”

Felix rolled her eyes and didn't even bother to answer. She walked over to the television and set the toolbox beside her. Crouching on her knees, she began to observe the faulty television. The girl bowed her head. _He's kidding, I hope._

“Isaac” Felix called, not even trying to hide her annoyance.

“Tell me” he replied in the purest voice in the world.

“Do you know why your television is broken?” Felix asked, arching her eyebrow.

“No” he grinned at her toothy, that sharp smile that seemed to belong to one of those portraits she'd seen in the Capitol. “Otherwise I wouldn't have called you.”

He would have been loved in the Capitol, with those eyes and that propensity to smile. He would have been one of their favorites. Part of her was ashamed for having such thoughts, but that didn't stop her from keeping her frown altered. “It's not funny. Your TV doesn't work because you cut the cables. That’s why!”

“Damn” Isaac laughed. “You caught me…”

“And you wasted my time!”

“That's not true” the boy replied, sitting down on the chair and pointing to the one in front of him. “Now we're talking like two civilized people.”

Felix shook her head. Isaac might have found it funny, but the whole situation didn't make her laugh at all. He couldn't do that. Telling her those things after the Tour, practically showing up in tears in her shop and then luring her to his house by deception. “What else do you have to tell me?”

“No, no, no. I'm not the one who has to talk here” he pointed with his chin “It's you. You never answered me after what I told you.”

“I have nothing to say to you” Felix clenched her fists in frustration. Months and months of thinking about it and that conversation remained a mystery to her. Maybe now was the time to get some clarity. “What you told me makes no sense to me”

“I asked for your forgiveness.” Isaac was no longer laughing now. He stared straight into her eyes and there was nothing about him that didn't exude determination and need to be heard. “Why is it so difficult for you to understand?”

“Because it doesn't make sense” the girl replied in a whisper. “You should hate me. I came back instead of your brother. Why are you asking me for forgiveness?”

“Why should I hate you?” Isaac asked. Her eyes were bright with tears, but her voice steady. All the playfulness was gone from his face. He stared at her almost without blinking and she too found herself unable to look down, though every part of her body screamed at her to run away and not face him. “I told you ... I'm back and he ...”

“But it's not your fault. You didn't kill him. “

“It doesn’t matter” Felix snapped and the tape fell out of her hands, but Isaac didn't stop looking at her. “Your brother is dead, don't you realize? It is me who must apologize to you!”

Isaac got up from his chair and walked very calmly towards her. Felix was forced to raise her head as he towered over her, and took a step back. She wanted to flee because she was ashamed, not because she felt threatened. _And even if_ , she thought disconsolately, _I have killed worse opponents._

Was she really thinking of killing him?

“Isaac, please ...”

“I apologized because I abandoned you when you needed me the most. We were friends and I completely ignored you and didn't even greet you after the Reaping when I thought you were going to die. “

“You don't have to apologize” Felix repeated. “Nobody believed I was going to survive.”

“Maya did” Isaac replied. “Maya came to both you and Jack.”

Hearing the names of her best friends in the same sentence froze her blood and pinned her in place. Those names left the acrid taste of defeat and failure in her mouth. Her purpose had been to protect them both and be with them forever, and she had managed to send them both away. She had literally watched them grow smaller and smaller, further away from her. She hoped she could at least offer Maya the future she had stolen from Jack. 

“Isaac, it doesn't matter. Maya was our friend, but you were his brother.”

“Yes, but I'm not the only one suffering because of his death.”

Felix blinked in disbelief. Those words sounded so different coming from him. She felt her eyes moisten and she closed them to keep the tears from sliding down her cheeks, but she couldn't stop her breath from catching in surprise. She took a breath to calm down, and in doing so she realized one thing: excluding her Mentors, Isaac was the only person in the whole District who could actually understand what she was feeling. Maya had been friends with both of them, sure, and she cried for Jack like all of them, but she wasn't tied to him in the same way they had been. Isaac was there when Jack was born; Felix had accompanied him in death. The girl felt something in her chest melt. Maybe Isaac wanted something more from her, maybe a few words or a more obvious nod, but he did nothing to force her. His gaze softened and Felix felt it almost like a caress on her face. He walked to the door and opened it.

“I just wanted to tell you. I didn't think we'd ever get a chance to talk any other way alone. You're free to go, otherwise you'll be late” he added with an amused smile.

Felix picked up the toolbox from the floor and walked to the exit, but stopped at the door, making Isaac's brow arch.

“I also came here with an ulterior motive” admitted the girl. Isaac's face broke into a smirk that lit up his eyes. “Oh, really?”

“Yes” she replied impatiently. She put her hand in her pocket and the familiar fabric of Jack's handkerchief caressed her fingers. She offered it to Isaac who, after a moment of bewilderment, recognized it, touching her hand as he took it back. The boy sighed as if in the presence of a very important heirloom, stroked it and held it to his chest with his eyes closed.

”It's practically untouched, they've made it as good as new,” Felix murmured. “But it doesn't smell like him anymore. I'm sorry.”

“Thank you very much, Felix” Isaac replied gratefully. “You have no idea what it means to me.”

Felix nodded and started to leave, but was stopped by Isaac's call: “Listen ...”

“What's up?”

“Don't disappear, okay?” Isaac was leaning against the door and even at this distance he towered over her looking at her from below up. She pursed her lips with a smile. “Don't make me resort to such means to talk to you.”

“Are you really convinced you can trick me a second time?” Felix gave him an amused look. “You overestimate yourself.”

“No, you are the one who underestimates me” he pointed to the watch and motioned for her to move. “Hurry up or you'll be late.”

“Then bye.”

“Bye.”

Once at home Felix locked herself in her bedroom and sat on the bed. The notebook was on the bedside table, next to an old book of poems that her father had found in the crevices of the shop. She found herself appreciating them for their metrics and musicality, but she had never felt within herself the urge to write one of them herself. The poems didn't interest her at all. 

She threw the pillow away and slumped onto the bed without even taking off her work clothes. It was better to sleep and calm down. Perhaps she would dream again of the waves of District 4 at the golden hour, when the sky and the sea merged and the world opened visibly. She dreamed of something else, something she couldn't remember when she woke up, but she was sure it had something to do with that exact shade of blue.

A few days later she was in the back of the shop fixing the clock gears. She listened to the music she had saved on her computer at a moderate volume. They were Maya's compositions she hadn't had the courage to cancel. It seemed to her that at least part of her best friend was there with her and that was a weakness she had decided to indulge. She wouldn't hurt anyone but herself. Music was medicine and poison to her at the same time, because it soothed a wound that she couldn't help but nourish, like a white snake biting its tail in an endless spiral of pain. The void Maya left was different from Jack's, yet it hurt just the same. Her music was the only thing he could have of her and she would be satisfied with that. 

Returning to work was one of the few positives of that period. The manual labor, the attention it required, the changes and adjustments she made in the course of construction, even the small droplets of sweat that burned her eyes were welcome companions, because she arrived at the end of the day mentally exhausted enough to sleep so soundly not to dream.

The satisfaction she felt in fitting slightly blunted gears to perfection, in refining small details, in creating something that seemed dead... was a feeling she feared she would never experience again in her life. While she worked, she deluded himself that there was always a solution and that anything could be fixed. She remembered reality only when she put the tools back in their place. In those moments suspended in time, in those moments of break from pain, she was a little girl who fixed things and not everything that they had made her become.

It had happened other times that he felt this way, even without the help of her precious tools.

Once, towards the end of the summer, she could not have said how or why, her feet took her to an area of the District that she could not even see from the top of the hill of the Victors' Village.

Once she reached her destination she slowed her pace, shuffling her feet, until she stopped in front of the entrance. The cemetery gate had never seemed so threatening to her. She hadn't set foot there for years. Her father used to visit her mother regularly, but she stopped shortly after her death and no one had ever tried to tell her anything about it.

Felix braced herself and entered with a sigh. Obviously, the path was perfectly traced in her mind and following it was not a problem. The problem was seeing her mother's tombstone, anonymous among a thousand others. Those gray and toxic fumes that in District 3 seemed to permeate everything: buildings, clothes, lungs. Apparently, even the tombstones.

The bad thing about District 3 was that even the gravestones were made of concrete. Embedded in the wall, simple squares all the same of anonymous people who were distinguished only by the faded photographs stuck on the facade. Her mother was resting in the third row, a little higher than her eye level, but she only needed to bend her head to be able to read _Yara Longsilver_ and see her photograph looking at her smiling, unaware that she had a stupid accident waiting for her at the end of the street. Felix sat on the bench in the middle of the open corridor and sighed. She couldn't see the resemblance her father praised so much, but the fact didn't bother her. Indeed, it lifted her. 

It lifted her not to resemble something that was so pure and beautiful in her mind. Looking like her would be an insult, and her mother didn't deserve it. Part of her was glad she was dead, so she couldn't see her become the monster she was. If not quite a monster, something that looked like it. It did not matter to wear a blue dress, new shoes and comb her hair carefully: predators must seduce, to attract their victims. _What if I was always like this?_ Felix shivered. _What if I was always a killer waiting to be unleashed?_

The desire to kill had been so strong ...

Even now, a year and a half after her Games, she found herself thinking she had to _kill_ in order to get what she wanted. In the Arena, killing was the only option, but once she got out she would have to shelve it. Instead she kept looking at both sides of the street, always listening in her house before going into the corridors and trying not to make a noise on the stairs, always waiting for some imminent threat. It had been so easy to get into survival mode in the Arena. So simple to put the spear in Lapis's belly and twist it to get the guts out… so _natural,_ to use it as a bait to lure the snake on him. 

_I'm sorry for the way I am, Mom_ , she murmured in her head, unable to speak. She knew it was useless, that Yara couldn't hear her, that she'd been dead for years and would continue to be _forever,_ but she just couldn't help it, she had to tell her. She got up, leaving a part of her heart on that bench and headed home. 

As she walked out of the cemetery, her eyes fell on the lawn dotted with tombstones, the part of the cemetery they hadn't been able to afford. _Even dying is expensive._ Some tombstones were adorned with flowers, those that belonged to the very wealthy of the District. The only grass growing at 3 was the one that made its way through the cracks in the concrete. And that of the cemetery, of course. She watched the lawn for a few minutes, finding it beautiful in spite of herself, and when she took her eyes off - with difficulty - she saw Isaac walking towards her. _What a fortuitous coincidence,_ she thought, unable to tell if she was sarcastic or not. 

Isaac saw her too, and after a moment's hesitation, he walked over to her. “Hello. What are you doing here?”

“It's a public place” she replied defensively. “And the curfew is a long way off. What are you doing here instead?”

“It's a public place” he replied, moving a pebble with his foot. “And the curfew is a long way off. Besides, it's Sunday, I'm not working today.”

“Do you come here often?” the girl asked. She wanted to determine if it was really a fortuitous coincidence or something else, although she couldn't say what she meant by _something else._ Isaac shrugged and nodded, his hands planted firmly in his pockets. He was almost funny, so tall and so curled up on himself. 

“Okay” the girl nodded. He came often, so it was really a fortuitous coincidence. She certainly didn't need to ask who he was visiting. Maybe she should have. But after all, this had been the first time in years that she had visited her mother, perhaps for the last time, so she doubted that Jack would receive that honor any time soon. She started to leave, but was stopped by Isaac, who looked up at her. “I also come here because I like looking at the sky, you know?”

“The sky?” Felix repeated, sure she didn't understand. She had never looked at the sky for pleasure in her entire life. What good was it if you couldn't see the stars and the air was always gray with industrial fumes?

“Yes, look” he motioned her to look up and then smiled. “Aren't they beautiful?”

Intrigued, Felix did as she was told and her eyes widened in amazement. The sky, gray with clouds, was dotted with thousands and thousands of black dots. Birds, she realized as she adjusted her glasses, a flock so large and numerous that it seemed like a single conscious entity drawing waves and swirls in the sky, constantly merging and disintegrating, enough to capture and imprison the gaze, but not enough to allow to guess their mysterious shapes.

At that moment Felix felt in the presence of a perfect mechanism, which did not need any repair, so precise and beautiful in its unpredictability that it demanded to be admired. It was a parenthesis from time. In following their trajectory, chaotic at first sight but absolutely symmetrical, Felix felt light, almost part of the flock. Their direction was unpredictable, yet everyone knew where they had to go. She found himself longing for a peaceful existence like theirs.

“They're gorgeous” she said almost with her mouth open. “Are they always there?”

“No” Isaac said softly. “Only at certain times of the year. In a while they will migrate, they will go to a warmer place. But there aren't all those buildings here and you can see them well.”

“Of course, I understand.” Felix nodded, grateful to the boy for sharing that experience with her. “I never noticed it before.”

“Because your nose is deep in books and you always lock yourself in the shop” he replied, shaking his head, almost amused. Felix shrugged, pecked, and looked back at them. They were truly splendid. Only Isaac could find a corner of nature in a place as man-made as District 3. Humans, by comparison, looked like savages. And they were, in a way.

“Have you ever seen something so full of splendor?” he asked curiously. Felix looked down at him. She noticed that he narrowed his eyes a little to look at her, perhaps he could not see well.

“Yes” she admitted. “The sea, during the Tour of the Victory. It was the only good thing. Sometimes I dream of it at night.” Usually when she thought of him, but she didn't think she needed to say it.

Isaac smiled that sweet smile that made her exclude the rest of the world to make her focus only on him. Mrs. Finnigan had given birth to two beautiful boys, no doubt about that. But Isaac, though gifted with a sharper smile than his brother, possessed a strange, almost timid sweetness that Felix hadn't noticed in anyone she knew. She liked Isaac's smiles, and in the last few months when for one reason or another he showed up at the store, she had had the opportunity to observe them closely several times. Felix did not draw - if one did not count the sketches of the projects and mechanisms he intended to create - but at times she felt the urge to draw the way in which those lips opened on his face and even infected the eyes, as splendid as the sea that she had just praised.

“I envy you a lot!” the boy exclaimed, crossing his arms. “I have to settle for them, but they do a good job.”

“You say?”

“Yes” he replied convinced. “They remind me that there are places without walls and without fences. Without Peacekeepers and without deaths. Without any of this. And they reminded me that… there is something inside of us… which is ours alone and they cannot take away from us if we don't allow it.”

He looked down, red in the face, as if he were ashamed of what he had just said. To Felix it seemed almost stupid, but she had the decency not to tell him. 

“You talk about hope” she said instead. _Luckily you're nineteen, Isaac_ , she thought condescendingly. _Luckily you escaped all your Reapings, because you would have been the first to die with such a mentality._

“Hope, faith, freedom… I don't know. I just know there is. I have it ... and you have it too.”

“I wish so” she replied, surprised herself at her sincerity. “I would love to believe it, really. But I think that something in me is no longer working and that I cannot fix it either. I don't know what it is. But I'm broken.”

Isaac studied her for a while before answering her. “Could be. But I'll tell you something I learned during your Games.”

At the mention of that event, Felix froze, stiffening as if waiting for a lash. No one ever mentioned them aloud in front of her, no one who wasn't struck by her quick glare that would end it all. Isaac continued, undeterred.

“I learned that the only condition beyond any possibility of repair ... is this.” And he pointed to the field of gravestones beside them. Felix watched them, wondering for the first time under which his borther lay. They certainly had been able to afford such a burial.

“So please, don't tell me you are incurable, because you are not. My brother is incurable. Your mother is incurable. You and me ... we still have the potential to be like them.” And he pointed to the birds gliding in the sky. Felix saw the logic in what he said, but he couldn't quite grasp it. 

“I have to go” she murmured then. “See you around”

“Count on it” he replied, and started toward the lawn. 

_I knew it_ , Felix thought, but being right didn't give her any satisfaction. 

The conversations she had with him were really strange, it took Felix days and weeks to fully understand them, sometimes even months. It was enough for her to think about the Victory Tour, how much the behavior of that boy who had chosen to be her friend still confused her despite everything. Felix didn't want to admit it, but a friend would really do her good.

From that day on, Felix looked up more frequently, enjoying herself following the flocks of birds that hovered in the air or guessing the shapes of the clouds. She hadn't done it for a long time, but that exercise allowed her to feel calm, almost relaxed. Lying diagonally on the bed she could see a piece of sky from her window and observe it.

“It's a shame we can’t see the stars though” she commented one of the many times Isaac came to visit her. He no longer pretended that he had something to fix, he simply showed up to chat while she fixed something and offered him all the candy _Angela -_ Mrs. Chastain _-_ offered her. Isaac looked at her oddly, stifling a smirk, as if he thought something very clever and decided not to tell her. “It’s the light pollution fault. Too many lights, it's normal not to see them.” 

“I know” Felix replied. “It's just that it's a shame. In Districts 12, 11 and 10 ... you can see them very well there.”

“What are those Districts like?” the boy asked, leaning on the counter. It was too short for him, so he sat down on it, laughing at the dirty look Felix gave him. “I used to imagine other places, but lately when I get home I'm so tired that I can't think of anything but my bed.”

“Very poor” the girl replied, remembering what she had seen. Immense cultivated fields, endless meadows, plantations as far as the eye can see. And the people's gaze. Sometimes they looked like beaten dogs, like in 12, sometimes they were resentful, like in District 8. “Some are very similar to 3. District 8 is the same, only the buildings are red brick instead of gray concrete.”

“And what about the others? The ones where you can see the stars at night?”

“They are immense. There are cultivated fields as far as the eye can see. The smell is pungent, but the air is clean, you can feel it in your lungs that it is not polluted. Those boundless spaces are a bit scary” she admitted, remembering the sensations she had experienced the year before.

By now winter had arrived in District 3 and the snow had begun to take root, but in some districts there was a spring atmosphere. She had felt small in front of the immensity of those lands that seemed without borders. But nothing could have prepared her for the sea. 

“But District 4 is my favorite ... The sea is _like this ..._ ” she made a sweeping gesture with her hand as if to indicate the great expanse jumping in front of her, although there was nothing but wood and concrete and glass there with them. Isaac followed her carefully with his eyes and returning it made it very easy to explain in words the beauty of that little memory she carried inside. 

“It is endless. During the golden hour it is so blue that you cannot take your eyes off. It's like staring at something staring back at you. But it's not scary.”

“Blue how?”

“I told you. Blue… not like the evening. Blue ...” _don't say like your eyes_ ”A blue you want to look at forever.” 

Isaac closed his eyes to visualize before him what she was describing to him. Sure, Felix hadn't said _blue like your eyes,_ but the description she'd given didn't just apply to the sea of 4. She felt a twitch in the pit of her stomach at the idea that maybe she'd never see it again in her life. In a couple of weeks Annie Cresta would start the Tour, as her posters posted on every street corner reminded them. She suddenly remembered the conversation she had had with Finnick the year before and thought that contrary to what he had told her, the odds had been in his favor that year. Who would have bet on that crazy girl? Nobody. 

Isaac's voice brought her back to reality: “Felix? Everything good?”

Felix shook his head and looked at him dreamily, almost astonished to find him nearby. “Yes… everything okay. Do not worry.”

“You've been away for a while” he told her as he checked her from head to toe to make sure she was telling the truth. His exam must have been successful because a feigned disinterested expression crossed her face, an expression that disturbed - and not a little - the girl. “I noticed you were also absent from the school chess competition ... have you forgotten?”

“I don't play anymore” she replied peremptorily. Suddenly the old abandoned screws on the counter seemed incredibly interesting.

“And you don't even go to school anymore?” he asked delicately. Felix turned to him, brow furrowed. He must have found her sulky expression incredibly funny because he stifled a laugh - Felix saw his struggle to erupt it and fail miserably, but she found nothing funny about it.

“No, it's useless. I already have a job. Actually two ... “ _and in the most important one I suck._ she avoided saying, but Isaac must have guessed something because every trace of hilarity disappeared from his face and he placed his hand on the girl's knee to offer her comfort. Felix winced at the unexpected contact, but didn't shake his hand off. She was used to her father's kisses on the head and Beetee's caresses, even Angela's pats, but the last time Isaac touched her he was brutally rejected. A year later, his touch was foreign enough to accelerate her heartbeat and familiar enough not to provoke a violent reaction in her. 

“Do you want to stay here forever? In your father's shop?”

“There's nothing wrong with that” she replied piqued. “You work in a factory and yet I don't think I'm saying anything.”

“Of course there's nothing wrong with that.” Isaac rolled his eyes and sighed. “I mean… don't you have any dreams? Didn't you want to design trains? Besides, I didn't give up on my dream.”

“And that is?”

“To teach, you know that.”

Of course she knew. Isaac was the only one who took care of the children that no one paid attention to. Felix had never asked him if he had continued his business and felt like a terrible friend for it. “Can you keep seeing them now that you work?”

“No” Isaac sighed. “But I taught them methods, they are good enough to do it on their own. If you think about it, that's the purpose of a good teacher. Provide pupils with the tools to be independent.”

“I had never thought about it that way.”

Isaac's smile implied many things. Felix too found herself smiling at her lack of imagination and raised her hands in a very relaxed gesture of surrender. “How do you think you can become a teacher?”

“Do you remember Mrs. Winkle?” Felix nodded and Isaac continued. “She is very old. She'll retire in a couple of years. I've already talked to the principal. I'll be able to take over as a teacher once she's gone”

“Then you just have to hold on for a while.”

“Indeed. But you could go back to school tomorrow morning. You were supposed to see the race last week. Everyone was happy because you weren't there and therefore you couldn’t win. Absurd, I swear to you.” 

He even put one hand on his heart and raised the other in the air - a truly solemn oath. Felix _laughed_ and put her hand in front of his mouth to try to restrain herself, in vain. Isaac laughed too, but he calmed down before her - she had no idea why he made her laugh so much - and he looked at her oddly, his head bent and a tender smile on his lips. 

Felix wiped the tears away from her eyes and apologized for the overreaction - “I don't know what got into me” - and Isaac shook his head, telling her not to worry. It was like floating under the sun.

By the time Annie Cresta arrived in District 3, however, she felt almost chained to the ground, unable even to look up to follow the flakes of snow flying in the air. That night Lucy had come to see her again.

At dinner, Finnick took control of the conversation, which benefited both Felix and Annie, who only ate and intervened only when asked. Felix felt so much compassion for that girl who moved her head to the rhythm of a song that only she could hear and who suddenly put her hands on her ears to stop listening to anyone. She saw a reflection of herself in her and wished the world had been kinder to both of them.

“Apparently I was right last year” Finnick told her, licking the cream from a small cream puff. He could make even such a delicate movement look incredibly sensual. “We won.”

Felix shrugged, playing with her pea soup that she no longer liked. “Then what you said to me last year applies to you. This year we too will have opportunities.”

“I'll tell you a secret, honey” and Felix couldn't help but be enchanted by those sea-green eyes. “You have to learn to take them as they come, because when you win ... sometimes it's as if you've never lost.”

Was he alluding to the fact that the joy of being able to save one erased the pain of the other thousand lost? Because if what he said was true, Felix couldn't wait to experience a similar emotion. But would she be able to get up despite the weight she carried on her shoulders? She just stared back, just enough for Finnick to understand that she understood and the shadow of seriousness that had obscured his face disappeared to make way for the usual mask of seduction. In other times Felix would have been surprised at the delicacy with which he addressed Annie, but at that moment Felix thought she understood Finnick a little better, and that didn't surprise her at all.

Her Tributes lost that year, again.

Killed both during the initial blood bath. Felix hadn't even had time to hope they would make it that Claudius Templesmith aired a very detailed account of how the District 1 girl's blade had penetrated with pinpoint accuracy into the girl's jugular.

She was a little ashamed of the joy she felt when the girl of 7 killed her with her ax. Nor was she surprised by her victory. 

“Who would have expected such a ferocious warrior in such an innocent girl?” Caesar Flickerman asked the spectators. “What a woman, ladies and gentlemen! What an actress!”

_Good for her_ , Felix thought as President Snow crowned Johanna Mason Victor of the 71st Hunger Games.

The summer that followed gave her a happy afternoon to which she would cling in the darkest moments. She kept it in his heart like a star to turn to in the darkest nights, faint and flickering, yet very bright in the darkness of the night.

She was at Isaac's house: he had invited her to celebrate her newly received teaching position. Miss Winkle was dead - not retired - and although sorry for her sudden passing, he was thrilled to be back in school that September. Felix, delighted with his happiness, had gone to the bakery and ordered the most frosted and stuffed cake of all and now they were at opposite ends of the kitchen table, enjoying it while discussing Isaac's plans for the school year. He was so enthusiastic that he couldn’t contain it.

“I'll be able to resume classes with my kids in the afternoon at school, and new kids will be welcome!”

“I'm happy,” Felix replied. “You'll do a great job.”

“Do you really think so?” Isaac asked as he took another piece of cake. Even his family had never been able to afford such a cake and he seemed greedy.

“Sure” the girl nodded, then looked at her watch. If she wanted to go home without worrying about the curfew she would have to leave immediately. “I better go, otherwise I'll be late.”

“Stay here” Isaac suggested. “Call your father and tell him to stay with me.”

Felix hesitated. Isaac hadn't changed his apartment and the only bed was the one he made by extending the sofa on the opposite wall. She looked from the couch to the boy, considering the idea of saying goodbye, but it seemed absolutely nonsense, so she agreed and had the nearest pay phone pointed.

“Downstairs” Isaac replied with a smile that spread from ear to ear. Part of her wanted to wipe that smug grimace off his face, but she just went down to tell Ned her decision. After the call was over she stayed on the street for a few minutes, breathing the sweet evening air, observing the friendly faces that always greeted her since she had won. She always waved back – unfriendly: yes; rude: never - and continued to mind her own business, that was enough for the people of her district to be happy. She looked up at the sky, managing to see a small flock flying. Was it a good idea? She had pushed Maya away and clung to Isaac. Shouldn't she have protected him too?

Felix felt faint and leaned against the wall of the building so as not to collapse to the ground. Could she allow herself a little weakness? One? Would sleeping at his house formalize their relationship? Would she put a target on Isaac's back, or did he already have one? _Why was she so convinced that her friends would be taken away from her?_

She untied her hair and did a braid and the precision work helped her relax. _It's all right,_ she told herself as she walked back into the building. The Victors were granted a life. Beetee and Wiress had each other, sure, but Mac was married. She knew for sure that Cecilia had given birth to her second baby in District 8. Felix could have friends. She could allow herself Isaac. Perhaps, she would be able to reconnect with Maya as well. She had to hold out for another nine months. 

“Oh, finally” Isaac greeted her bustlingly at the door. “I thought you changed your mind and ditched me.”

“No” she replied, closing the door behind her. It hadn't escaped her that Isaac had already made the bed. “What do you want to eat for dinner?”

“Actually, I have a surprise for you. No, don't worry, it's nothing bad” he said quickly, laughing at her fearful expression. “You just have to lie down here and close your eyes. I swear I won't do anything.”

Felix watched him closely, her hand still on the handle, ready to leave. Her suspicious nature had been useful to her in the past, but perhaps she had to learn to control it. That thought in her head had Maya's voice and some echoes of Jack too, so she walked over to the bed, lay down and closed her eyes. She heard Isaac fumbling with something, then felt him lie down beside her and say, “Open your eyes.”

The stars were shining in the small apartment. Felix gaped at them, incredulous. The purple-lit firmament opened before her, the stars flickering against the ceiling and walls. “Isaac… it's beautiful! Have you reproduced all the constellations?”

“Yes” the boy replied with a huge smile. He turned to look at her and Felix smiled at him, amazed. “How long did it take you? What projector did you use?”

“Factory surplus” Isaac shrugged. “But it was harder to find an astronomy book. You don't know what I had to look for to faithfully reproduce all the stars.”

“You did good! It's… “ She couldn't find the words, so she just turned her head up, ecstatic. She felt Isaac's hand slip into hers and she let him interlace their fingers. They stood looking at the stars under their very personal sky and for one night she seemed to live in a world where there was no room for sadness and pain: only for that hand intertwined with hers that allowed her to look at the immensity of that sky without being afraid of it.

She was scared to death several months later, in the dead of winter, just after Johanna Mason's Victory Tour.

President Snow was leaning out of _her_ window and staring back at her. Felix had no choice but to be escorted by the two Peacekeepers who entered her house, trying to ignore the feverish beating of her heart that thundered in her ears. She didn't knock, as she was expected, but it took her a second longer than it should to close the door behind her. Calm was imposed, and when she turned to face the President, she was lucid enough to hold his cold gaze. 

“Good afternoon, Miss Facilis. I didn't know you came back to school.”

“Of course, you knew” Felix replied. President Snow smiled, but his smile did not extend to his cold, hard, impenetrable eyes. Felix read nothing in it, except that he was studying her as well.

“Please have a seat.”

Felix did as she was asked, realizing in that moment that she hadn't been that close to him since he had crowned her Victor two and a half years ago. Breathing had just become more complicated, because after a very long time the breast implants had started to bother her again. She felt them throbbing where her body had recovered from malnutrition with interests, just as the doctors had predicted. The President had given his consent for that unfortunate operation.

“You're right, I know you've started studying again. I am delighted, although I believe that the District's programs, while valid, are not minimally at your level.”

“I don't think you came here to discuss my school career with me.” Felix realized she was being too direct, so she softened her tone and added that she would finish her studies that year.

“I'm glad I can skip pleasantries with you Miss Facilis, because I like straight-forward people.” He was silent for a moment, a very long moment when Felix realized everything was wrong with her: from the loose braids to the stiff posture, from her back not touching the chair and, of course, her own breasts. This visit was upsetting her too much. 

“Tell me, then. I’m listening to you. “

“Miss Facilis, I can't deny that you played it well in the Arena. You moved what was turning out to be a mild edition with little media coverage. Poor of pathos, if you allow me a personal judgment. Then you throw off the mask, and reveal your true colors to the whole country.”

Felix said nothing. At that moment she felt no urge to kill. Every cell in her body screamed at her to escape.

“But you were neither the first nor the last to lose a loved one in the Games. You have to remember. Remembering your own history is fundamental, if you don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past, don't you think? “

“Yes” he replied without knowing where she had found that voice. For too long her own, although authoritative, had been silent.

“Well, in the Capitol there are many people, men and women of high rank and high prestige, whose only desire is to soothe your pains of love and spend time in your company.”

Cold.

The one she had felt only once in her life, when her name was picked up at the Reaping. That cold so heavy to dull her ability to think. All she knew was that she was trapped, alone and with no way out. She couldn't refuse, of course. Still, she didn't say _yes,_ as she should have. 

“Don't ask me this.”

“Pardon me?” the President blinked, genuinely confused for the first time since the conversation began. “I am not sure I understand.”

“Ask for anything but not this, no. I am not able to do it.” She tried hard not to look like a little girl asking for permission, but the best she could do was stop herself from crying.

“It's not bargaining, Miss Facilis. We are not negotiating. You don't have the last word.”

“No ...” what was that intense smell of roses? Felix was so disgusted that she lost her thoughts for a moment. “But there must be something else I can do. Something else the Capitol needs. The nation is full of Victors to be _consoled_ … you yourself said so. But there is only one like me.” 

She hoped it was true. She had no idea what exactly she was offering, everything but her body. She was unable to do it. The idea of having the dirty, mischievous hands of those who _would have sponsored her, if they only knew she was so good at killing…_ Did she really have anything else to offer? 

“It could be said that you are sinful of arrogance, were it not that your words correspond to reality.” Snow laughed. “Obviously you understand that the Capitol never gives anything for nothing, and that even this beautiful house, where you live with your father and where your friend comes to spend time with you, is not a gift dictated by mere generosity.”

“No, of course not.”

What a fool, though, to have hoped for the opposite! But hoping for something doesn't make it a reality and she should have realized that two years earlier.

“You love chess, don't you?”

That question took her a little off guard. “Yes, since I was little. My mother taught me that. I'm very fond of chess.”

“So one could almost say that your talent is… Games.”

The sentence remained suspended between them for a time that seemed infinite. Snow knew how to play it, she had to give it to him. It took several moments for the words to break through her. She almost laughed when she understood. It was just a different kind of prostitution, her talent - her mind - instead of her body.

“When do I start?”

“This is one thing I really admire about you, Miss Facilis, really. You _always_ know what to do. And you’re so diligent in carrying out your tasks.” 

He stood up, that polite smile on his face, and walked over to her. The smell of roses was unbearable. Felix stood in front of him, just like when he had crowned her, and held his gaze. Also, on that occasion he had looked at her satisfied, pleased. Gracefully, he pulled the white rose from his lapel and offered it to her. Felix took it in her hand, praying he wouldn't change his mind. Snow didn't seem to do it. 

“The train to the Capitol leaves in an hour. Tomorrow we will make the announcement to the whole Nation. The first planning session starts in two days and will last two weeks. You will receive instructions at each meeting. Goodbye, Miss Facilis.”

Having said that, he disappeared into the corridor without even waiting for the girl's answer, who collapsed in her chair the instant she heard the door close. The rose fell to the ground, severed from its small stem. It couldn't bear the pressure of her fisted hands, and ended up beheaded. She noticed how the whiteness of the petals clashed with the blood that bathed her hands. And who knows how many more lives she would have had occasion to take, now that she sold her talent for the Games in exchange for her body. Horror washed over her like a wave.

Months later, on the day of the Reaping, Felix looked in the mirror to make sure she was in order. The aseptic white uniform was unbearable to look at, as much as the red dress Daesee had wrapped her in after her victory. White as freshly fallen snow, like the snake in her Arena, like her mother's grave

Felix could not recognize herself in those clothes that none of the Districts people had ever worn before, in that uniform that had always divided _them_ from _us -_ which side was she on now? 

She glanced at her watch and headed for the Control Room, where Seneca Crane entered as First Gamemaker under a shower of applause. The center screen tuned to the Reapings. With her decision she had forced Wiress to Mentor that year.

_Let the 72nd Hunger Games begin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey hey! Visit our Tumblr pretty please?? [superkattivehblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/superkattivehblr)


	6. And then I understood why you cry

The day of the Reaping dawned sunny and muggy, clear enough to shine.

The streets shone, the windows shone, even the water tanks on the roofs of the buildings shone. She could see them from the eighth floor of the building but could not stand the sight of them for more than a few seconds. Anice decided to take it as a good sign: on such a beautiful day there was nothing that could go wrong. At least she hoped so.

Little Delaine's voice brought her back to reality. "Are you ready?"

Anice pulled back the curtain and gave the girl a big smile. "Sure. Did you understand what you have to do? "

“I have to stay with Satine until the Reaping ends. Like last year."

"Exactly," Anice replied, patting her cheek. Delaine was a copy of Dyneema at her age: same chereled face, same brown hair, same pink lips. Only the eyes differed: Dyneema's were dark as the chocolate they couldn't afford, while Delaine's were grass green. On the girl's face, however, they looked much sweeter than they normally would have been, while her sisters’ were prickly despite the innate tenderness that dark eyes conveyed.

Her own eyes communicated nothing else, for sure. As dark as her hair, her lips always arched in a smile, _kind_ was the first word that came to mind. _Reassuring. Sweet._ These were the adjectives that best described her. The last things that would have been of help in case of bad luck. 

But it was their last Reaping. Luck had been in their favor for the previous six years. Why should she and Dyneema have been Reaped that year? A little voice in her head wherpered: _because you have your name 25 times each in the girls' bowl, that's why._ Anice shook her head to dismiss that annoying voice. They had to survive the day, that's all. Wasn't that what they always did? She had been doing it for as long as she could remember, in those lonely days at the community home, Dyneema since she was seven and had arrived at the institute with a little bundle in her arms: little Delaine who had never been able to know her parents. 

"Are we ready?" Dyneema asked as she entered the room that served as the kitchen and entrance to their tiny house. She was so beautiful, with the handkerchief on her head and that slightly worn, yellow dress that showed her fit legs. The heels of her worn shoes gave her those extra inches she didn't need, and she was also able to find - she didn't know how or where - something that looked like a lip gloss. Dyneema approached her, forced her to sit in front of the mirror and ran the same lip gloss over her, smiling at her satisfied. "How beautiful you are."

"Not as much as you," Anice answered sincerely. For her there were no more beautiful people than her girlfriend and she was absolutely sure that it was an objective fact. Dyneema was beautiful. Delaine looked like her. Anice was their family.

"Then put your scarf on and let's go, I don't want to be late." The Peacekeepers had no trouble delivering justice with an iron fist in District 8.

Anice did as she was asked - she adjusted the lilac scarf over her head and licked her lips, absurdly happy with that little vanity Dyneema had managed to find for them and she took her hand, little Delaine and left the house. Satine, Anice's colleague at the factory, was waiting for them on the street. She waved goodbye to the girls and took the little girl with her, since Laine too young for the Reaping, while Anice and Dyneema followed the stream of children that led towards the square. They exchanged greetings with colleagues and old schoolmates, but proceeded in silence, the familiar anxiety growing stronger with each step.

“How did you manage to get that lip gloss? We can't afford it. "

"I accepted it as payment for the embroidery Acey Daydust commissioned me," replied her girlfriend furiously. "That asshole has a lot of money and he even had the nerve to keep the value of the lip gloss from my pay."

"Maybe you should have refused ..." Anice murmured worried, already feeling guilty for that habit they had allowed themselves.

"I don’t think so. It's the only pretty thing we have. And then he already asked me to embroider some more clothes for his wife. Slave labor pays off. "

Anice sighed, then laced her fingers to the girl's. "I hope we can make it. After this month, we will no longer be able to take extra food"

"We'll think about it later." Dyneema's voice was categorical. When that fire kindled her voice and lit up her eyes, Anice felt shivers run down her spine.

That blinding sun almost seemed like a mockery of all those children who slowly lined up waiting to be registered. The metaphorical cloud that hung over them all obscured the faces of those present, who moved slowly, like cattle waiting to be slaughtered. Which was what they were.

Almost immediately she regretted having opted for a flowy hairstyle like that: if she had tied her hair, she might not have felt so hot. But she had never been able to resist her vanity, not in the little things she could afford - the pastel-colored scarves, the embroidery details she got from factory excesses - and at least for those she felt no guilt. There was so little beauty in District 8. She was happy to have Dyneema's hand clasped to hers, happy to have a hold that held her to reality and told her she wasn't alone, that there was a world in which it was possible to be happy despite the difficulties they faced every day. Dyneema had been a part of her world for so long that she hardly remembered a time when she wasn't there. She hardly remembered her arrival at the orphanage, only the details: a crying bundle, Nym's face soiled with dirt, a dark necklace without charms. The same necklace that now hung around her girlfriend's neck.

When Birdie Nett, their host, stepped onto the stage, the atmosphere became even more tense. Anice lacked air, but no longer from the heat.

" _A very good morning,_ District 8! Are you ready to celebrate the Seventy-second Hunger Games together? "

Only silence answered Birdie, but he didn't seem to care. The frost spread like a wave among the eligible tributes. Dyneema clung to her with her other hand as well. In the minds of both the same, desperate thoughts. _Make it stop soon. Let it not be us, not us._ Dyneema told her she was foolish to feel guilty for wanting the ax to take off someone else's head, but Anice couldn't control her feelings. Not even Dyneema - her outbursts of anger had caused her many problems, especially in those years at the community home- but woe to tell her. Beautiful, short-tempered and also touchy. Her girlfriend's temperament was almost as funny as Birdie's _very good mornings_. 

Anice had to admit that he had outdone himself that year: the metallic lilac make-up was in stark contrast to his black skin and his lashes - overly long - flapped like butterfly wings on his full, decorated cheeks. The teeth, very white, almost sparkled on her face. The big screen made sure that every detail was visible and uncovered, that every weakness of the Tributes was exposed and laid bare for the use and benefit of bettors and Gamemakers. Anice, on the other hand, focused on the peculiarities of the man's outfit who had the power of life and death over the children of the District.

"... I'd say we're ready to start!" a giggle cheered his already scandalously happy face and he headed for the bowl of the boys on his left. “As you know, I like to change the order every year. Since last year we started with the ladies, today it's up to the young men!" He covered the sliced giggle with his gloved hand. He slipped it into the glass bowl and grabbed the very first note of the pile.

"Azlon Denvers!"

That name had no meaning to her, who could hear her heart thunder in her ears like a war drum. A broad-shouldered, imposing figure emerged from the crowd, walking with her gaze straight ahead. Even from that distance, Anice could see that the shirt he was wearing was pulling on his arms. Dyneema's hand was crushing hers in complete terror. She thanked once again to have her hand that kept her anchored to the ground and that prevented her from falling apart and falling into the chasm that she felt opening beneath her.

It was their turn.

Birdie's hand wandered among the sealed notes, made a right turn, a left turn, reached his arm almost up to the shoulder, and caught the unfortunate one.

_Not us, not us ..._

"Anice Dowlas!"

_"NO!"_

Dyneema's sob startled her. She turned to her, shocked, as she saw the scene almost in slow motion: Dyneema shaking her head, tears streaming down her face, the other girls moving away creating the void around them. It was that detail that brought her to reality. Anice panicked. She feared they might mistake Dyneema for that year's tribute, so she hastened to wipe their tears, kissed her, and almost ran to the stage.

Birdie was crying too: "What a moving start to the Games!"

He took the boy and Anice’s hands and raised them to the sky: "The tributes of the Seventy- second Hunger Games!" 

The crowd cheered, relieved not to be on stage, and Anice couldn't stop the tears from clouding her vision.

She was led into the Hall of Justice, in a small but nicely furnished room, where she would have an hour to greet her loved ones. Only Dyneema and Delaine would show up. The thought of the two of them squeezed her heart in a vise. She felt that death sentence hanging over her head and her heart beating wildly, as if she wished to make all the beats it had been denied, all the ones it could have lived if it hadn't had to go down to the Arena and die. Because she would have died, without a doubt.

Dyneema threw open the door and took her in her arms. Anice closed her eyes and let herself be rocked. Delaine was right behind her sister and joined the embrace, her thin little hands stroking her hair.

"It will be all right," said the smallest. "You will come home, right?"

"Delaine, I-"

"Of course, she'll come home, what kind of question is that?" Dyneema retorted her sister too quickly for Anice to stop her.

"Then why are you crying?"

"It's the tension, Delaine." Anice shook her head. "We had plans for tonight, to eat something special because it was our last Reaping ..."

The voice cracked at the last word and Dyneema hurried on for her. “But when she comes back and wins, we can eat something special every day and all our friends too! Do you know why?"

"No" Delaine hadn't lived long enough to enjoy a tribute win - not even Anice and Dyneema - but everyone had stocked up on food and goods when Cecilia, the latest winner of District 8, returned home, and remembered how it was having refined sugar in your hands every now and then. Delaine had never had that chance.

"Because not only does the Victor go home free and rich, but because for the whole year following the Games, the whole district will have food, provisions, sweets ..."

"Really?" The little girl was ecstatic, and that hopeful look made Anice sick, she knew she was going to die and that none of that would come true. Why did Dyneema delude her sister so? 

"Delaine, come here." Anice welcomed the little girl on her lap and hugged her. She was very light, like every other child in the district. No one had too much flesh on their bones. Delaine knew about the Games, but she was too young to really understand them. Too young to know they weren't normal. She had seen the Games, she had to, but it is one thing to see _someone's_ blood, a stranger with no name or face ... But now it was _her turn_ now. And consequently, _theirs._

Anice knew that there were three corpses in that room.

"Delaine, listen, I'll do my best to get back ..."

"Exactly."

Anice glared at Dyneema who kept interrupting her and didn't give her time to say goodbye.

"Give Anice a kiss and wait outside, I have to tell her a secret ... okay?"

Delaine snorted but did as she was told and promised to be good. As soon as she closed the door behind her, Anice exploded: “What crossed your mind? You don't have to say all those things to your sister. I'll never make it!" She burst into tears. Saying it out loud made it real, but Dyneema was the only one she wanted to share such a thing with. She had only one road ahead of her, one aimless road, and they were forcing her in that one direction.

“You must promise me that you will come back. You have to promise me. "

Anice's eyes widened. “How can you ask me such a thing? _How_?" she had never been able to promise her anything, not even to love her forever, because she never even had the certainty of arriving alive at the end of the day, let alone a lifetime ... It was _unfair_ of her. No, worse. It was _cruel._

“Because you are strong, Anice. You don't know it, but you are strong. You are the pillar of this family.”

Anice knew it, that's why she was crying. All three would have died. Dyneema's business at home would not be enough to support her and her sister, especially not now that they no longer had the right to Tesserae.

"Look at me, Anice."

Anice, who would never deny her anything in life, looked at her.

She had never seen such a look on the girl's face. Her eyes were wet with tears, focused on hers. She looked at her as if he had all the answers in the world in her hands and she adored her for it. As if it radiated light and she had lived in darkness her entire life.

"I love you."

Anice was out of breath. They never told each other.

Everything that those two words implied… she felt it too, so desperately, so deeply and with such intensity… But it was cruel to tell him that, on that occasion. "Don't tell me that. Not like that. Not as if it were a goodbye."

“It's not goodbye. It's true. I love you. Do you love me?"

"Yes, I love you! I wanted to tell you earlier, I love you! " But she had never told her because she couldn't keep everything that those two words implied and she couldn't lie to her, worse, she couldn't break a promise made to her, to Dyneema ...

"I know." Dyneema brought their foreheads together, took Anice's hand between hers and kissed it, eyes closed. Anice felt her lips wet with tears. “For that you have to promise. If you really love me, you will promise me that you will come home to me. That you will do _everything_ to make it." 

Was it possible that he did not understand? Did he not understand that it was what he most desired but could not get? That she didn't believe in herself at all?

"Dyneema ... I can't fight, I'm weak, I don't know how to take up a weapon."

“Not only the strongest win and you know it well. Do you remember the one who freaked out a few years ago? The new Gamemaker? She's from District 3, and the year after that girl from District 4 went completely crazy, but still won. You can do it."

"But…"

“No 'buts', Anice. It is the will that counts." She took her face in her hands. "Do you want to go home?"

"Sure…"

"Then promise." And he showed her the little finger.

Anice burst out laughing. _She wants to make me pinky promise!_ Maybe that was what convinced her, or maybe the fact that they didn't even have to pay for her coffin and funeral. The thought, oddly, heartened her. After all, one way or another she would go home. _Technically,_ she wouldn't break that promise. 

She touched Dyneema's forehead with her own and lingered in that contact, before intertwining her little finger with hers. "I promise."

"You pinky promised, you can't break the promise."

Anice shook her head, still united with hers. "I love you."

"I love you."

Only later, on the train, did she fully realize all that had happened. She had to outlive twenty-three people. But even when Cecilia slumped into the chair across from hers and introduced herself briefly, all she could think of - all she could care about - was Dyneema's voice telling her she loved her.

"You won't get very far if you start like that," Cecilia retorted. Anice winced and felt her cheeks burn with shame. _Here, you are not even starting, and you are already a disappointment._

"Sorry," she murmured, looking down.   


"You don't have to apologize to me," Cecilia replied. “I've been in the Arena already. Rather, you two, what can you do? "

"I am strong!" exclaimed the boy next to her. What was his name ...? Azlot? Azlon? He looked vaguely familiar, perhaps she had glimpsed him at the market or at school when she was still going there. _I'm strong,_ he said, slapping his palms on his knees, leaning towards Cecilia with impatience. Of course, he was impatient. Anice did not doubt his strength. His frayed shirt pulled on his biceps and left a few inches of his arms exposed. The buttons on the chest did not seem stable. Anice would have double-stitched them, just to be sure they didn't suddenly jump. In District 8 it wasn't difficult to find buttons - at least those - but finding the same in size and color, that was the challenge. Judging by his appearance, Azlon seemed to fare little better than her. Who knows how much a beast like him ate? 

"And what can you do?"

Anice blinked in perplexity. "Me?"

Cecilia repeated the question patiently. "Yes, you. We understand that our Azlon here is robust and can carry heavy loads. What can you do? "

"I can sew," Anice replied in a flat voice. “In the factory I take care of the finishing. But I also know how to do nicer things, like embroider beads on silk."

Azlon chuckled nervously and Cecilia looked at her straight in the eyes, making her uncomfortable. The sight began to blur and Anice was overwhelmed by the instinct to run away and lock herself in the room - there must have been only one for her on that luxurious train, right? - but her intent was blocked in the bud by Cecilia's voice. "Do not Cry. Whatever you do, whatever you feel, _don't. cry._ Do you understand?" 

Anice wiped her tears before they could slide down her cheeks as she hurriedly nodded and breathed to stifle the sadness that threatened to flood her. She would cry later, in the bedroom. "Okay, yes."

"Let's say you're pretty," her Mentor told her, looking her up and down with a tone just softer than her gaze. “And beautiful too. It can be useful. "

"Thank you!" Somehow, being told she was beautiful made her feel relieved. Less of a failure. Although it obviously wasn't up to her. "I'll try to improve."

"You won't be the only one," Cecilia reassured her. “But first things first: do you want to be trained together or separately? For me it's the same, but it's up to you to decide. "

The two looked into each other's eyes. In Azlon's elongated dark ones she read her own doubt and fear.

"Maybe ... We'll have more chances together," the boy said, reaching out to her. Anice, who had no intention of playing the Games alone, hurried to hold her and nod. "Me too."

"Perfect!" Cecilia let go of her frown for a moment and pointed to the set table just as Birdie fattened her up in the carriage. "How about discussing it at dinner? You are certainly starving. It was a drastic day for everyone. "

Anice sat enthusiastically, amazed by all that food. "But is it all for us?"

"Honey, sure!" Birdie patted her cheek and Anice smiled at him. “You are the stars! You have every right to enjoy these delicacies. What do you want? There is everything: pasta, rice, meat, fish, desserts, an almost unlimited choice of cheeses… directly from District 10! But these delicious napkins are obviously your merit!"

"Thanks, I'm glad you like them" the surge of pride that the girl felt made her open in a broad smile. Meanwhile her eyes searched the table, unable to decide. Azlon, on the other hand, had thrown himself on a rice with a curious lilac shade and was gulping it down with enthusiasm. "It's really good!" he said with her mouth full. Anice tried it and a delicious, spiced sauce invaded her tongue. She put grilled vegetables and a white cream cheese on her plate but couldn't get more than a mouthful each. She already felt full. _Tomorrow,_ she told herself once she was dismissed. The next day she would dedicate herself to the other dishes. She had a week to enjoy them. But as she collapsed in bed and the weight of reality crushed her, she realized that this week would be the only one she could ever enjoy.And since no one was looking at her, she let the sobs go. 

The next day she woke up so early that the sun was barely peeking over the horizon, though Anice couldn't figure out what was down there: mountains? Sea? The profile of a distant city? The train was traveling too fast for her to understand. She decided to take a shower since she had simply thrown into bed the previous day.

The cream-colored dress embroidered with such dedication by her was all creased, but when it fell to the ground it made a strange sound. Intrigued, she bent over the fabric and realized that the pocket she so cleverly concealed was not empty. At first she thought of the lip gloss - maybe Dyneema had put it in there? - but when she put her hand inside it and her fingers touched the metal, she knew what it really was. Dyneema had given Anice her necklace, the only tangible memory she had of her mother. It had no commercial value: the metal was as if rusty and there were no pendants of any kind attached, yet Dyneema would have preferred to sell the house rather than give up that jewel. A stifled sob escaped her as she held her to her chest and cradled her as if it were her girlfriend's hand. Surely, she had slipped it into her pocket during the hour they had had to say goodbye, while they hugged, because otherwise Anice would never have accepted the necklace to be separated from its owner. But that thought, so tender, broke her heart and she thanked in a low voice the stubbornness of her girlfriend, who that day had given her something to cling to in the last desperate moments of her life.

At breakfast Cecilia was very frank and told them that the days that followed would be stressful and that they could not be avoided in any way, and that therefore they had to enjoy all that the Capitol had to offer. Azlon accepted that suggestion with enthusiasm, but Anice sensed a sort of ultimatum in the mentor's voice. It didn't escape her the way she looked at them, with her eyebrows just raised as if he felt sorry for them. Anyway, the prep sessions turned out to be more traumatic than expected - that thing called waxing was torture - but the creams and baths they forced her into were like stroking her skin, so it wasn't too hard to do what Cecilia suggested. In addition, her staff were incredibly kind, and so very enthusiastic: Anice struggled to keep up with all their chatter, but she found them funny all adorned in colored wigs and with eyebrows encrusted with jewels, moreover they involved her in the conversation because really interested in her opinion. How could anyone be rude to such nice people who did their best to make her look her best?

"Thanks a lot, guys," Anice said, looking at herself in the mirror. All traces of hair had disappeared from her body: arms, legs, armpits, even the pubic area had been completely cleaned. She didn't like feeling so naked, especially in such a delicate area, but she found it useless to express her dissent. What good would it do? On the other hand, at least her skin was silky smooth and perfumed.

Her stylist greeted her with a radiant smile that Anice returned, although the nudity made her uncomfortable. The stylist – Lucrezia! - took her hand and brought her in front of a mannequin and with a theatrical gesture she discovered her dress for the parade. At first sight it looked like a jumble of fabrics and materials without order or criterion; instead, if you looked closely at them, you could see how the very different fabrics - denim, satin, brocade, even the silk trims - created a patchwork effect that told a story. The story of District 8, which has always produced all the fabrics that every single inhabitant of Panem wore, from the humblest miner in District 12 to the most prestigious noble in the Capitol. Even President Snow's full suit went through her District factories. Anice wore that dress with pride and gazing in the mirror realized she had never worn something so luxurious. The dress fit her perfectly and the shoes gave her a few inches more, making her look more mature. Her mood was sky high, until Lucrezia enthusiastically showed her the _centerpiece._ Anice who took a while to understand what it was. 

A huge headdress made up of three large balls of wool attached together, with an occasional pin sticking out here and there. It reminded her of the ice cream cone Birdie had enjoyed for dessert the night before. She sighed in horror. Lucrezia did not give her time to protest and forced her to sit down and together with the rest of the staff secured the huge deal on her little head.

"How disgusting" Azlon said once they met in the tribute hall at the city amphitheater. The boy wore a suit identical to her, only with pants instead of her skirt. It wasn't bad - even if Anice thought she looked better - but that hat…. “We can't even get rid of it. They stick to us like mussels. "

"It’s heavy as hell ... I hope it doesn't fall during the parade."

Anice froze. She hadn't thought of it. But now there was no time left: the designers forced them to get on their wagons pulled by beautiful thoroughbreds and Cecilia suddenly appeared, ordering them to smile and say hello to the crowd. "I recommend: the more they like you, the more chances you will have."

Dyneema's voice rang in her mind: _you can't break the promise._ Anice nodded, eager to do her best. The best she could do. She was shy, sure, but making friends had never been a problem for her. Smiling and saying hello was within her power, and she had even seen herself in the mirror. She was beautiful. Really beautiful. In the Capitol they couldn't resist objects as beautiful as he. So, when she was greeted by the roar of the crowd she did just what she was ordered: a huge smile opened on her face, and she greeted the huge audience with enthusiasm. She never took her right hand off the edge of the wagon, she was afraid of falling. So with her left hand she waved and occasionally put the hat over her head - more than once she felt it slip and in a panic she assured it as best she could - and she thought she heard cheers. Directed to her? Who could have known, they screamed madly at the sight of them. 

She was seized by a surge of excitement when roses rained down on them, some even on their wagon. She sent kisses left and right, hoping to be caught and to appear often enough on the monitors, when the wagon stopped between District 7 and District 9, just below the raised pulpit from which the president leaned. Anice fell silent instantly.

"Tributes, we welcome you to the Capitol."

His voice rang authoritative and deep, and only in the pauses between sentences did people allow themselves to scream and whistle. Anice herself realized she was breathing only when he stopped, as if implicitly waiting for the president's permission. As if she weren't allowed to do it without his approval.

“Honor to your Districts and to you, who with your sacrifice contribute to the sustenance of all Panem. Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor! "

The amphitheater exploded in a shower of applause and Anice felt the urge to plug her ears with her hands, but she just clung to the wagon, suddenly wanting to be alone. At dinner Cecilia told them that they would talk about the strategies to be adopted the following morning, so the girl just tasted the cream cheese accompanied by fried vegetables and immediately closed herself in her room. It was magnificent. The bed was so big that even stretched out diagonally she couldn't touch the edges. The blankets, so soft… she almost sank into them. They smelled so sweet and so delicate… roses? Anice automatically thought of those red flowers that she had embroidered so many times, but which she had rarely had the opportunity to see them and could never smell them. Whole wardrobes full of clothes, that huge bed, the tiled bathroom and a huge window with a breathtaking view of the city lights ...

_All this ... just for me?_

Anice couldn't believe it, not even when she ordered the lights to dim with a single voice command and let herself be enveloped by the softness of the blankets. As she twisted Dyneema's necklace in her fingers and thought of her, her mind kept returning to President Snow and how authoritative his voice was, even though he hadn't given orders and his face was filled with a jovial air. Somehow the figure of the President who invited them to the massacre clashed with that of her girlfriend who gave her that little lucky charm.

He, old, dressed in white and solemn, clean as a snowflake. Dyneema, young, almost dressed in rags, perpetually bent over the handkerchiefs to be embroidered. Anice had no doubts about who she preferred, but for some reason her mind kept focusing on President Snow, on his words, on his gaze that had rested on every single tribute, and how he had looked at her almost in passing, absolutely heedless of her. Anice held her breath every time she relived that cold indifference ... and the burning admiration of the inhabitants of the Capitol. The President's courteous nonchalance was nothing compared to the almost violent joy of the people in the amphitheater, which was almost rude. Just a few hours ago their rush had meant a ray of hope for her, but right now, as the lights and sounds of the city enlivened the night just outside the palace, that same ardor fed a growing consternation in her.

Didn't they realize that those who they were applauding right now were thinking of killing each other? Or was that just what turned them on? So why become attached to them, invest your time and money in people who _surely_ would have met certain death? And then why that crazy and irrepressible joy? For the first time since that absurd day had begun, Anice felt the acrid tip of disgust on her tongue. 

She dressed them. She and Azlon made the clothes they wore, the laces they adorned themselves with, the lace they admired and the fabrics that made them so proud, it was _her_ merit if they were happy and it was other tributes merit if they were fed, spoiled and pampered so _why_ did _they_ let them do that to her? To continue gazing like peacocks? Didn't they know that those animals lived in the mud tormented by insects, consoling themselves with their beauty? 

Anice felt the tears streak down her face and let them flow, because no one would see her there. She had no role in that play. She too lived in the mud, and she certainly didn't devour others to survive. But perhaps, deep down, she too was a vile insect that killed in order not to die. The very thought terrified her and accompanied her falling asleep. She dreamed of wearing a dress of splendid colored feathers, which glowed in a different color depending on the light. But she froze to death, under the gaze of the President who smiled at her.

The next day she didn't look very good. She tried to settle down to the best of her abilities and sat down at the table, enjoying all the delicacies that awaited her. She filled her plate with warm scones, cream cheese, and chocolate-soaked cakes. Azlon also filled her plate to the brim, and they also exchanged dishes to try, until Cecilia sat down next to them and poured herself a huge cup of coffee. "So, your training begins today."

"What should we do?" Azlon immediately asked. Cecilia sipped her drink cautiously, before replying quietly: “Anything you can think of. Take as many courses as you can, focus on the mandatory ones - usually the ones that give you the most chance to last in the Arena - and try to get an idea of the other tributes. It’s very important."

Anice mentally jotted down all the instructions, while Azlon asked, "Should we make allies?"

Anice looked at him in amazement. Was Azlon almost… thrilled? Not really, but the girl could not find an adjective that best described him. He was eager to test himself, to know, to listen to any advice Cecilia had to offer. As if he had a chance. He was very robust, sure. Also, very tall for his age. He was sixteen, but her outlasted her head and more, not to mention how much the Reaping shirt pulled over his chest and arms. No surprise that he ate so much. But was that really enough to give him a chance? A real and concrete one? Anice didn't know, but as long as Azlon continued to include her in his plans, everything would be fine. She didn't think she could _really_ do it, even though she certainly had a better chance than she did, but in any case, she would have liked him to win. At least Dyneema and Delaine could enjoy the fruits of his victory for a year. 

"You _don’t have to_ make allies, if you don’t want to" Cecilia replied. "It's not mandatory. But it's always good to keep your eyes open. You two decide what to do, the important thing is that you talk about it with me." Cecilia looked at her briefly and just then Birdie appeared to escort them to the Training Center. Before they followed him, Cecilia made some final recommendations, like a mother with her children on the first day of school. “Azlon, try to concentrate and not be an exhibitionist, even if you are good at something. Anice, please don't look like a beaten dog all the time." 

Before they could answer, Birdie eagerly hit the elevator button and only then did Anice realize that it was made of glass and could see the people below her. It did not surprise her as it should have, because Cecilia's advice had only made her more anxious, and Azlon pointed out that her beaten dog face had deteriorated. Most of the tributes had arrived, and at ten o'clock the trainer, Atala, began her little speech which seemed to have been memorized.

“Welcome. Inside this venue you will find everything you will need: survival and fighting techniques and the best masters to teach you. Each activity is useful, but none is essential, except the five that are mandatory for everyone with which you will face today."

While Atala poured out in that almost bored voice all the statistics and the most likely ways in which they would die, Anice began to observe the other tributes. It was the first time they were all in the same place together. Normal clothes allowed for a quick glance to get an idea of who he was going to face. The Career group, needless to say, was appalling. All the males were as strong as Azlon and the females looked no less. For the other districts, several malnourished children and lanky adolescents competed. She realized she was one of the oldest and the thought threatened to make her cry for injustice. The odds had been in her favor for six years, why had it decided to abandon her at the last minute? To compete with helpless children and giants trained from the cradle to take up arms? No matter what Atala said, all the training in the world would never bridge the huge difference between people like her and the Careers. Anice could blind someone with the point of a pin if provoked - and she doubted that too - but she would never be able to face anyone either with a weapon or in hand-to-hand combat. Why try, then? Why not let yourself go immediately to the inevitability of her destiny?

_Pinky promise,_ a voice answered in her head, that voice so dear that she could never ignore. _You cannot break this promise._

There was no doubt that she would die, but by not making a commitment to stay alive… She would have broken that promise twice. Dyneema had just cornered her.

Then she headed for the knife station, where a small group of tributes - all smaller than her - watched in amazement at the holds and movements the instructor was showing them. She did not like the clarification he made: “Remember that if you have to handle a knife or defend yourself from such a blade, you will still be injured. The best you can do is limit the damage. " After that he had invited them in turn to perform those basic movements he had just shown. Anice did not cut herself – weird - and even got a nod of approval from the instructor, Pliny, even if he felt obliged to warn her. “You have to be more decisive when handling such a weapon."

"So?" asked Azlon, who had joined the course shortly after her. Anice felt a pang of annoyance to hear him speak in that tone of know-it-all, especially since he was not with _her_ that he had to compete, but repressed the movement of hate listening to the advice that Pliny gave Azlon: "The grip is firm and the intention is there. Remember to keep your arm straight and keep the blade under control. You have to be able to see it. " 

_See the blade,_ the girl pointed out in mind, _be convinced, keep a firm grip._ It was evident, however, that none of this would have helped her if she had limited herself to following that one course. So, she warned Azlon that she was going for a walk- the boy nodded absently - and began to look around for an attractive location. The spears and swords made her too afraid to even get close. Seeing the boy from District 1 juggling a double-bladed sword was enough of a deterrent to make her turn wide, though despite herself she watched him for a while, almost mesmerized by the rotations the sword made with such ease that it seemed _simple._ For a moment, Anice hinted that she could, then the blade fell mercilessly on the skull of a mannequin, opening it exactly halfway. She rubbed her feet away, still unsure of what to do but determined not to pay any more attention to that boy as good as he was lethal. Of course, if the Games had been an embroidery competition, he would have been the envy of her, but at that point Anice would not have been on the verge of panic because she was absolutely unable to play. Those rules did not favor her at all - and her desire was to start on an equal footing with everyone else, not even to be at an advantage - but no, she had to start at a disadvantage ... If only she had had the training of the Careers or just the boldness of the girl from 10! 

It was the first she had noticed as soon as they set foot in the training center. She didn’t look at the others with frightened eyes and large with terror, lowering her gaze as soon as she noticed that she was being looked at or retreating as someone approached. Quite the contrary. Even her appearance seemed the mirror of an indomitable disposition like a beast: her tanned skin clashed with the wheat-blond hair, curly and voluminous, which opened on her face like the petals of a flower or the mane of a lion. She had listened to Atala's speech with one hand on her hip, her foot stamping impatiently on the floor, and as soon as they were dismissed she had made her way to the lance station, from which she had not yet departed. As far as Anice could see, she wasn't doing badly. She never hit the exact center of the target, but he never missed it. Perhaps using the lasso to tame cattle was a more useful activity than she thought. She felt another wave of despair approach and forced herself to breathe, remembering the advice - the order - that Cecilia had given her: whatever happens, don't cry.

_I'm not crying,_ the girl murmured to herself, but then she scolded herself, because it was since that morning that she did nothing but self-pity and compare herself to others. Once again, Dyneema's voice brought her back on track _._ The words took on the tone of a threat more and more each time she thought about it. She forced herself to think clearly, even if it was difficult to navigate the mixture of emotions and sensations that overwhelmed her. The boy from District 1 was excellent with swords because he had practiced since he was a child. Besides, even if it made it look easy, it didn't mean it really was. Such a beautiful choreography was certainly to the benefit of the Gamemakers and at the same time scared to death those like her, but it would not be used in the Arena, or at least she hoped it wouldn’t. The girl from District 10 was getting along with spears because she was used to similar "precision" work. On the other hand, what could Anice do? Sew. Embroider. Make an excellent sanding of fabrics. 

Her eye fell on a deserted post, whose instructor stared with distraught air at all the others, full of tributes. He enthusiastically welcomed her arrival, and after a quick introduction he began to hand out a series of instructions on how to create the perfect bait. Anice listened carefully and replicated his movements with precision, until she created an almost perfect lure. The instructor's eyes sparkled with joy when lunchtime came, and he managed to get her promise to return because he would show her: "Wonderful things!"

Anice did not doubt it, even if she had accepted for purely selfish reasons. Weaving the threads to create knots small enough to hide but strong enough not to let the prey escape reminded her of the pleasant everyday life of embroidery, of threading a needle into a fabric and creating vivid images with just those knots. She sat next to Azlon with a much lighter heart than he had that morning and listened with keen interest to the boy's training report.

"Well, I spent the whole morning training with a knife and I'm not bad, but Pliny advised me to practice hand-to-hand because I won't do anything with just a knife." He swallowed a huge amount of mashed potatoes and took a sip of a fizzy drink, pouncing on the pork chops. Anice was not surprised by that hungry attitude: judging by how robust he was, Azlon had to eat a lot even at home, but the poverty he lived in was obvious, and finding himself with all that food available must have seemed incredible to him. Even she wasn't exempt from that kind of hunger: she'd filled her plate with a potato flan with some stringy cheese and mixed greens and had even set her sights on a particularly tempting blueberry pie. The problem was that she would never be able to finish everything and she felt guilty about leaving food on the plate. But she just couldn't fight that urge to fill up while it was possible.

“And so, you should also practice hand-to-hand. Even just a little something like that, it's better to know."

Anice's heart warmed when she heard concern in her companion's voice. “Okay, I'll get over there soon. As for what Cecilia said… did you notice anyone? "

"No," the boy admitted with a contrite air. “I was too focused on training. Although the one in District 2… She went on sword fighting for half an hour straight. Half an hour! How do you it?"

"I would be capable too if they had trained me from an early age," replied Anice envious. “Take a look at the girl from 10, the one who looks like a lioness. She is beautiful ... and she gets along with spears too. "

"See? When you’re not focusing on your misfortunes, you're good too" the boy teased with a smile. Anice looked down, smiling embarrassed. Azlon turned to look for the girl she pointed out to him and looked at her carefully. She had pounced on a pork chop and there were already several meat dishes on the plate, all gnawed to the bone. Who knows what it must have been like to produce high quality cuts of meat every day and not be able to keep even a little for oneself? Anice knew the sadness and the desire to see soft and colorful fabrics leave the factory without being able to bring home even a little, but she imagined that with food it must be even worse. The girl sat alone, oblivious to both the Career group and the other tributes, some of them sitting next to her. Azlon turned back to her meal. "You say it's worth keeping an eye on her?"

"I think so," murmured Anice with the morsel in her mouth. "I mean, for someone who grazes sheep, she's good with spears."

"All right. Hey, taste this.” He passed her some stew and gravy.

Practicing hand-to-hand after getting stuffed wasn't a good idea. She felt her stomach upset and felt the instructor's disappointment even without seeing her. At that moment Anice was on the ground, her throat gripped by the woman's arm, as she furiously tapped her palm on the floor calling for surrender. Aurelia - that was the name of the woman who almost choked her - let her go with a discouraged snort. “This is not good. If you want to survive you have to commit much more than that. "

"I'm trying really hard," muttered Anice, rubbing her throat. She suppressed a retching and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She could feel a growing pain running through her back, but Aurelia was relentless. She showed her again a simple block and an offensive move and Anice repeated it as best she could, but Aurelia struggled easily and knocked her out, again. "Come back in the morning," she said helping her up. "More focused." Anice nodded, feeling like a schoolgirl caught without homework, and wandered a little longer between one station and the other, until they were discharged. Sweaty, in pieces, with low morale, she waited for the lift to arrive and for Azlon.

The roar of the Favorites disappeared as they boarded the first elevator, but a coarse laugh caught her attention and turned her around: the girl from District 10 was doubled over with laughter and Azlon was giggling beside her. She gave him a friendly push and followed him towards her. Anice was not sure she understood but shyly returned the smile the girl gave her.

"Anice, this is Soliell." Azlon winked at her. "Soliell, this is my District mate, Anice."

"Hi." Soliell squeezed her hand vigorously. “Your friend is strong. Its spears stick deep, even if he never hits the target. "

Anice giggled and they all went into the elevator together. The girl from District 3 started to get on the same elevator, but Soliell gave her a little push with her hand. "Sorry, but who gave you permission?" Her eyebrows raised a mocking smile on her face, but Anice herself could feel the coldness of that refusal even though it was not addressed to her. The girl stepped back and Soliell claimed the elevator for the three of them. She greeted them with a cheerful "see you tomorrow" and then disappeared behind closed doors. Anice didn't know what to think, except that Azlon was perhaps taking her suggestions a little too literally.

At dinner they discussed it with Cecilia, who asked them to describe the day and the girl. Azlon was more than happy to answer for both of them and Anice just made clarifications here and there, baffled by the fact that it was so easy to overwhelm her voice. She looked at the boy once again, noticing the sparkle that animated his elongated eyes. She realized how much he believed in himself: his gaze shone with a naive and childish confidence, blind to reality. She was amazed again at his inner conviction that he could make it. Part of her was almost envious. She turned the spoon over into the fondue she was enjoying, wanting to drown in it. It consoled her that Azlon considered her part of her team, however ramshackle it might be, and that if she pressed Soliell they would materialize she would be part of the group. The problem was that they were going to take her out first. Or worse, she would have tripped with a knife in her hand and stabbed herself. Much more likely. 

Birdie congratulated them, saying that he was already organizing many aperitifs guarantee them sponsors, while Cecilia brought them back down to earth by telling them to continue to maintain a constant commitment to training. "I'll have a talk with Butch and Skinner tomorrow, too, to hear what they think."

Anice deduced that these were Soliell's mentors, who, unlike them, seemed to totally ignore her district mate. The remaining days of training went pretty well: Azlon excelled at hand-to-hand and she made more than passable knots, so they taught her to make rudimentary but effective game traps. Soliell joined her and happily showed her a variant of the traps Anice had just built and sat down with her and Azlon for lunch. Anice could not explain how she had ended up between two such fires: on one side a big boy with innocence in his eyes and strength in his arms, on the other a lioness who laughed out loud and attracted everyone's gaze, including Gamemakers. Anice knew she was invisible by comparison, but she didn't mind the feeling. Growing up in the shadow of others had always been her personal prerogative.

At the community home all the children had big sad eyes, always looking for a mother they would not find in anyone, not even in those women and men who were busy trying to keep them alive. Even as a child, Anice realized that no one would ever adopt her, that there was not a single family in District 8 that wanted to carry the burden of another starving child to raise as their own - that there was no place, in the sunlight, for rootless flowers like her. She always had to grow, creep into the smoking ruins, expand like ivy on a wall: first the community home, now the one Azlon and Soliell had erected against everyone else. She hoped to hang on to it as long as possible and that her allies would not realize the parasitic nature of their relationship. 

On the last day of training Aurelia took a rubber knife, put it in her hand and began to fight with her armed. Anice extricated herself at her best but could not do anything against the brute strength of the instructor, who took her by the armed wrist and squeezed, stabbing herself without hurting herself. “You have to push, you understand? You have to gut them while you can because it is clear that you have no chance to win a fight. "

Anice felt a spasm in her wrist and dropped the knife, horrified. "What? But how…” The question would have been _how can you say such a thing,_ or even better, _how it occurs to you that I can do it,_ but Aurelia stopped her. I retrieved the fake knife and pointed it at her throat. “Aim for the jugular. A clean and deep cut." Then she dropped the dagger and caught it with her other hand, hitting her in the stomach and causing her to moan in surprise. 

“Or attach them at the belly. If you can't open their belly, stick the blade up to the hilt. Don't listen to those who tell you they feel guts or blood. You have to look them in the eye and keep pushing until you see life go away. Did you understand?"

Anice nodded, her throat dry, even though she wanted to cry. She understood that everything she said to her was for her own good, but how could she think _she_ could do such a thing? She welcomed lunchtime with relief, forcing herself to eat and join the conversation. It was time for individual sessions. She waited for her moment accompanied by growing anxiety, because she had just realized that she had tried most of the activities available and that she had been mediocre at all of them. 

As her foot stamped nervously on the floor and the tributes followed one another, leaving the room more and more empty and her mind more and more busy, he tried to review at least the basics of the survival techniques he had learned: how to light a fire - still unclear - how protect yourself from the cold and keep the internal heat - impossible to show - how to create a trap - feasible, but of little effect. By the time Azlon entered determined and disappeared for the fifteen minutes allotted to him, Anice's brain hummed like a broken radio. She no longer remembered anything, and her head became heavier and heavier. When it was her turn, she entered as if headed for the gallows.

Immediately she looked up at the Gamemakers' stand. One in particular had an attentive and fixed gaze on her. Anice felt a rush of disdain invade her limbs and looked away, almost offended to be judged by _her._ The new Gamemaker. The one who came from District 3 and chose the Capitol’s side with so much zeal. Anice remembered her quite well because they were the same age and that had stuck with her when she won: she remembered thinking _I would never make it in her place._ She also thought so at that moment, but it was another thought that moved her legs towards the position of the knots and baits: Anice would never, never, _ever_ lower herself to such a level to please anyone, much less the Capitol. There were limits that were not to be exceeded. And then that slight smile on the girl's lips, on the poster, as she held that bouquet of roses and seemed the purest person in Panem ... Absolutely non-existent on that face that now followed her in every step she took. 

Animated by the desire to prove herself capable of doing _something_ , her fingers flew in intertwining the modest variety of knots she had learned during training. She saw that she still had half the time available and ran to the only position that seemed to be in her ropes: that of the bait. She bent over the table giving her everything she could need and began to create a hook from what looked like a small bone, smoothing it to the desired shape. The threads were extremely thin, but they weren't difficult to manipulate. When they called her back, warning her of the end of her session, the bait was more beautiful than functional, but Anice was satisfied with it all the same. She was dismissed by a man with a huge goblet of wine in her hand, while the new Gamemaker scribbled something in a notebook. 

In retrospect, Anice wondered if she was the one who suggested the 5 she received. She seemed to be the only one who had really paid attention to her, and it would have been fine too, had she not felt so embarrassed about the 8 obtained by Azlon. All he had to do was lift weights and throw a few spears here and there.

Caesar, however, did not mention her training grade, which he was grateful for. Instead he smiled at her with teeth as bright as his gaze: “Anice! Wonderful! Welcome, welcome, you are splendid! "

"Thank you, Caesar," she replied, opening a huge smile. It was true: she herself had been captivated by the make-up that enhanced her full lips and dark eyes, and the dress, which made her look curvier than she was. Her shoulders and back were bare, but her generous neckline was interwoven with beautiful brocade flowers. She almost complimented herself. _Almost._ "You're really fine too." 

"How kind!" Caesar gave her a kiss on the back of her hand and invited her to sit down, doing the same. His pink sequin suit shone in the spotlight so much that Anice was having a hard time looking at it, but she struggled anyway. If there was one thing she liked about the Games - if that could be said - it was Caesar, the only friendly face who seemed to really care about them. Anice couldn't contain the thrill of being so close to that living legend. “You're too good, Caesar. It is truly a pleasure and an honor to be here with you tonight ... "

"It is for us too, dear Anice, it really is" Anice could not help believing him "And in fact I think I speak for everyone if I say that we are really curious to know more about you, aren’t we, friends ? "

A choir of _Yes!_ rose from the crowd, igniting a surge of hope in the girl's heart. 

“So, tell us: how are you here in the Capitol? Are you enjoying it?"

“Oh, the Capitol is beautiful, Caesar… the thing that struck me most is the fact that it is always illuminated, even at night. I think this is the perfect place to live if you're afraid of the dark,” Anice replied, nodding enthusiastically to underline the point. She was amazed at how the anxiety was subsiding as she spoke to the historic show host. She was really at ease. “And then I finally have the opportunity to wear these beautiful dresses! You can’t imagine how envious I am of seeing them always worn by others and never being able to have them for me ... "

"With good reason, my dear!" Caesar commented supported by the consent of the crowd. “You are as bright as a star. But tell me: a beautiful and kind girl like you ... will surely have someone special waiting for her at home. "

Anice's face lit up, for the first time in days, with an open and sincere smile, _happy,_ in bringing to mind the woman she loved. “Yes… Dyneema. She is my girlfriend." 

A softened chorus rose from the crowd, who watched in rapture, lost in that wonderful loving detail. Some were sobbing, some were nodding solemnly, but all had tears in their eyes. The tenderness she felt for Dyneema threatened to overwhelm her. "I love her more than anything else in the world ... She and her sister Delaine." An idea occurred to her. "Can I say hi?"

"Of course!" Caesar replied, encouraging her.

"Hi girls. I always think of you."

"Aren't you just adorable?" Caesar held up her hands, as if to say he hardly believed it. "Your parents must be really proud of you, you are good, beautiful and also selfless: practically perfect!"

"I have no parents," murmured Anice, looking down. It wasn't really a thorny issue for her, since she had been orphaned for as long as she remembered it and it was part of her identity, but talking about it in front of such a large audience ... "I grew up at the District 8 community home, that's where I met Dyneema... "

"Oh, little angel," Caesar murmured with tears in his eyes. Anice shrugged, intending to add something, but the beep that signaled the end of her interview sounded, making the conductor jump to her feet. Anice, by reflex, did the same. She took her hand and kissed it again, looking her straight in the eye with infinite tenderness. Anice couldn't tell if it was fake or not, but it did make her feel better.

"Anice Dowlas, the daughter of District 8!"

The crowd applauded her and Anice walked away with a huge smile on her face.

But when she found herself in the shower, removing all traces of makeup from her face, she felt the warmth of her own tears streak down her face. Better to cry them all there, where no one could see her or say anything to her. Perhaps she would cry until she was dehydrated and collapsed in bed, exhausted. But as she turned under the covers, over and over, and the moon made its arc in the sky, he realized that he would not sleep a wink tonight. Which was bad, because the next day — if her heart didn't stop beating in twenty-four hours — she'd be exhausted, and she'd need every ounce of strength to make it. She needed Dyneema beside her. She tightened the chain around her neck, entrusting her with words of love of despair. She wished with all her heart that her whispers would reach the girl, to let her know that in those moments so terrible as to make her sob, she was thinking of her. To her hand pressed against her breast, to her lips that tasted hers, to her body perfectly embedded in Anice's. If she had known that this was the last time they made love, quietly so as not to wake Delaine in the next bed, she would have made it last longer. She would linger on her breasts longer, and let those long, thin arms hold her forever. Dyneema would take her heart and give her hers in return.

The window overlooking the main street, tens and tens of meters high, seemed a better alternative to what awaited her the next morning. She stood up, absently touching the glass, but found no weak points in it, although she wasn't surprised. He headed for the large hall, unable to turn over in the covers again. She was surprised to find Cecilia with a hot chocolate in her hand staring at the city skyline. He turned to her, surprised. “Oh, Anice. You are up. I should tell you to sleep, but I know very well it's impossible. "

"Yeah," the girl murmured, sitting down next to her. "You still remember how it feels, don't you?"

Cecilia raised an eyebrow, her curly hair barely held back in a ponytail that emphasized her sharp features. A typical District 8 face. "Do you think you could ever forget it?"

"No," she laughed despite himself. “I’ll remember this night for the rest of my life. So, for another couple of days at most.”

"You see, this is your problem” Cecilia angrily sipped her chocolate. “You act like this and you become even more disadvantaged than you already are. If you really have to a beaten dog, make sure you bite on sight whoever comes in front of you."

_But I didn't even know how to defend myself from bullies at school…_

The girl sighed, choking back tears. Cecilia offered her a cup of chocolate, which she refused, but her mentor persisted. "Drink. It will make you feel better. If you don't, you'll have one more regret on your list tomorrow morning. And I think that list is already pretty long. "

Anice accepted, drank it all in one gulp and was surprised by the strong and enveloping taste and found herself swallowing it all in one gulp. "It's very good."

"It's the Capitol's generosity," Cecilia commented with a disgusted face. "Only the best for her children."

"I have no parents," murmured Anice, who had never felt so orphaned as she did at that moment.

"I do," Cecilia replied icily. Her eyes flashed at her and suddenly Anice was a tribute during her games, and he was afraid to find her in front of him. “And I also have a daughter. I've always wanted kids and my parents have always loved me, that's why I came back to them." _I want to go back to Dyneema too,_ Anice thought, looking down. But she did not believe that the will was enough to win _._

“I'm sorry you don't have parents. You have me, you will have to settle. "

"I think you were a good mentor." She had been shrewd, patient, had discussed the various strategies with them, and had prepared them together without giving more importance to one or the other. "I really do.”

"Listen to me." Cecilia put down the cup and sighed. “I know you're the kind of person who sees the best in anyone and would like everyone to hold hands and fairy tales like that. I watched you and saw how you look at Azlon, that you think he can win. Perhaps in your mind you see yourself as a supporting character for _his_ victory and think that your usefulness, sooner or later, will take its course. " 

Anice did not speak. Cecilia was exposing her and what she showed her repulsed her. How pathetic. Was she really like that? A supporting character in someone else's play? Or did she at least have a say in herself? Did she really want to be the girl from District 8, who only knew how to sew and barely got a skimpy 5 in training? _No_ whispered a voice inside her. A voice that belonged to her wounded pride. 

“You were right to find this alliance. It was smart. Keep them tight while you can. But remember that they are not your friends. You don't love each other. You will not be companions on a trip. At best, only one will live. Did you understand?"

"Yes, I get it," she wasn't the smartest person she knew, but she wasn't _that_ stupid. “It's just that… I wish I could do more. To be more than the cute little girl who wears a nice dress that she might as well have sewn herself. " 

Cecilia shook her head, a bitter smile spoiling her face. “It's not in the Arena that you can prove it, honey. In the Arena you just have to win. Got it?"

Anice nodded, dejected. "Did you say these things to Azlon too?"

For the first time Cecilia smiled seriously, amused by that question. "No. He doesn't need to be encouraged, quite the contrary. He has just the opposite problem to yours. I had to bring him back down to earth."

She chuckled too, finding herself in perfect agreement with her mentor. She understood why she had always wanted to be a mother and thought that if she guided her children like that, she would prepare them for everything, even the Hunger Games. She was tempted to ask how she survived the thought of her children being extracted. It was not too remote an eventuality: it had already happened, and the draws had almost never won. Anice felt the anguish grip her stomach at the thought of little Delaine in her place, and she wasn't even her daughter. She found the question too personal, and kept it to herself, only thanking her mentor.

Funny, how the human mind can play strange tricks.

Anice did not remember having breakfast, getting into the hovercraft and then locked up in the launch chamber. She didn't even remember stepping inside the glass tube.

But the cold stung her cheeks and she found herself hugging herself in the heavy coat, her breath freezing in little puffs of smoke. The Cornucopia sparkled silver forty meters from her and it was almost impossible to look at, so bright amidst all that white.

_Fuck,_ moaned Anice trembling. _Fuck, fuck, fuck!_

The 72nd Hunger Games had begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey! Surprise! Say welcome to Anice! you can find us on tumblr [superkattivehblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/superkattivehblr).

**Author's Note:**

> (English is not our first language so please forgive any mistake)  
> You can find us on Tumblr @superkattivehblr


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